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Joe Oliver

@joeolyver.bsky.social
604 followers 956 following 298 posts

Interested in History; particularly the Weimar Republic, Churchill post 1945, Theatre, Shakespeare, reading, writing, napping. Completer finishe

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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Didn’t realise today is the 30th anniversary of the first broadcast of Arthur the Aardvark until now - but fittingly was wearing this T-shirt anyway
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
She’s the Harold Hardrada of this version.. Doesn’t fit the story so leave ‘em out
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Jon Phillips @jowiph.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
I picked up a copy of the collected letters of JRR Tolkien for reasons, and this is the most bullshit table of contents I've ever seen. I'm actively angry that it exists
Contents

Introduction - vii

Foreword to the Revised and Expanded Edition - xi

Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien - 1

Notes - 607

Index - 637
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
An excellent Simpsons themed birthday present and card from my great friend Amy
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Got some dem fine cards 😍
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Churchill apparently referred to him as ‘Senator Estates Cow-fever’
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Genuinely a great chap
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Hillary Benn going is a bit like the ravens leaving the Tower of London. Labour Prime Minister in history until now has had a Benn in the Cabinet at some point MacDonald x2/Attlee - William Wedgwood Benn Wilson x2/Callaghan - his son Tony Benn Blair/Brown/Starmer - grandson Hillary Benn
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Let’s party like it’s 1998…
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Baby hedgehog 🦔
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
An entertaining daft debate is taking place about whether the ‘Northern end’ of the office is cooler than the rest..
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Now we sit back and enjoy everyone saying ‘Starmer wasn’t so bad’
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Fair play it was done well good grace - even mentioning ‘with good grace’ for the write-ups Nothing in his (political) life became him like the leaving it
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
‘And since I have achieved all my objectives as Prime Minister in only two years there is no need for a third’
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Yep
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
My Mum says a woman in Sidmouth today asked her seriously if Britain will be communist now that Andy Burnham’s won
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Big news tonight is that this raffle prize I won a while back is now relevant.. (Knew past me was right not to take the fancy bottle of shampoo)
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
His ‘A Yorkshire Boyhood’ is a lovely account of growing up in the Sheffield of the 1930s - vanished in many ways but still recognisable to Sheffielders in others. In later years he had a Medieval house deep in the Peak District
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
I had great admiration and fondness for Roy Hattersley. A beautiful elegiac writer as well as a politician Remember Edna Healey saying he shared many traits with Dennis Healey traits - similar Yorkshire roots, Labour politics & wit (a comparison Roy would have delighted with)
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
I’m sure they send it by cheque hoping people won’t cash them/pay them in - but I will on a point of petty principle!
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
Drinks are on me this weekend!
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Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Beach Walk, Whitby, painting by Bridget Wilkinson.
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
Bag of giant chocolate buttons turned into one giant chocolate button in the heat. Going to eat it with a knife and fork..
A conglomeration of chocolate buttons welded together into a weird honeycomb
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
We’re 16 hours in and war has finally broken out with the first Battle of St Albans!
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Jessica Elgot @jessicaelgot.bsky.social · 16/05/2026
Have we ever had a future prime minister explicitly mugging off Andrew Neil this badly?
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Obvs wish these people well but were there any slightly more consequential stories of rail disruption the BBC could have used..
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
4 hours in and just reached 1415. So only 40 years until the Wars actually break out. Some great detail though - eg contemporary claims Henry V could run faster than the flight of an arrow may have been somewhat exaggerated
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
(Not sure we really need-a the ex-ah-agerrated Italian accent for the Venetian chroniclers being quoted)
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Started the 23 hour unabridged audiobook of Alison Weir’s account of the Wars of the Roses, which should keep me going for a while on commutes. It makes clear in the first few minutes it will only cover the first part of the Wars..
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 27/04/2026
Yes! (though they make less of a thing about that)
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Appropriately today I’m in Stratford-Upon-Avon where (we guesstimate) Shakespeare was born on this very day 462 years ago in this very house 🤩
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Found this book which brought a burst of nostalgia A tale of blatant discrimination against a woman with clear dyspraxia
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Helen Day @lbflyawayhome.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
The modern world in old Ladybird books. Eating on trains, 1974. Artist: Frank Humphris
Two stewards in livery serve a couple in suits a restaurant- grade meal in a train dining carriage
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 12/04/2026
News Viktor Orban is conceeding the Hungarian election and Rachel Zegler won an Olivier Award coming in at the same time :)
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 05/04/2026
As the misspelt church banner said ‘Chris is Risen!’
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Laura Stevens @lauramstevens.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
!!!!
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Bet he wishes he’d thought of that..
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Not to be an apostrophe person but wonder which student they asked..
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Got stuck at Castle Cary for a while. And some people say there’s no historical evidence for King Arthur 🤷🏻‍♂️
Pleasingly naff Sword in the Stone sculpture at Castle Cary station
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Can’t remember a time before I was on this train. Just going to accept I live here now.
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Train delayed. At least 4.5 hours to go. Thank gawd at least after uhhming and ahing over whether I needed a physical copy I brought Alan Bennett’s latest diaries at the station 📖
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Saw Arcadia last night then didn’t sleep for ages thinking obsessively about why Stoppard’s play is so perfect.. 💔
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
Can only really wear this to other productions of Romeo and Juliet but still..
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
New Romeo and Juliet with Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe was great fun, with lots of unexpected turns even in such a well know story. Been there, done that, got the pleasingly daft promotional scarf 🧣
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 19/03/2026
New Romeo and Juliet with Sadie Sink and Noah Jupe was great fun, with lots of unexpected turns even in such a well know story. Been there, done that, got the pleasingly daft promotional scarf 🧣
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
❤️
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Daley AF(C) @daleyafc.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
Whatever you possibly think this could be, it’s even better. All in the delivery.
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 09/02/2026
‘I have concluded my work here is done, as optimal communications have been achieved’
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Joe Oliver @joeolyver.bsky.social · 08/02/2026
“The Prime Minister begged me not to advise him to appoint Peter Mandelson. He didn’t want to take the advice but I advised him to do so.”
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Jack Lynch @jacklynch000.bsky.social · 02/02/2026
I’m loving the attitude in the marginalia to this copy of Griffith’s Morality of Shakespeare’s Drama Illustrated (1775).
THE
MORALITY
Of SHAKESPEARE's DRAMA
ILLUSTRATED. By [the infamous] MRS. GRIFFITH.HENRY THE SIXTH.
THIRD PART.

[was no great thing]DAVID GARRICK, Efq.

[a slayer]THE
TAMING
O F THE
S H R E W.
[Easy as taming a monky]
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