Freelance writer. Words in, inter alia, DIVA Cosmopolitan The Tablet Alumna @BalliolOxford @UCLSSEES Cricket fan and wanderer of Eastern European byways
Through The Looking Glass
Joined July 2021
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I'm moving to where the skies are not grey. I look forward to seeing you there.
@alicebateman.bsky.social
Alice Bateman retweeted
#OTD 1985. At Bournemouth, Neil Kinnock takes on Militant in his conference speech.
He credits the Labour movement with giving him “the life chance of moving out of a pest and damp-infested set of rooms into a decent home, built by a Labour council under a Labour Government”.
The news of yet another botched execution in the US (this time Christa Pike in Tennessee) is stomach churning. Nobody, whatever they have done, should be treated with such wanton cruelty. The whole episode brings shame on the US criminal justice system.
Alice Bateman retweeted
But we stilll can't put the Black Sabbath's Blue Plaque on Birmingham's The Crown thanks to @ToyokoINN_JP
A bit late posting this but my piece in The Tablet on the Church in Poland and the flight from organised religion (paywall)
thetablet.co.uk/features/los…
I recently fell down a rabbit hole called Tilsit, so a few impressions here of a vanished town, of Napoleon and cheese and Lithuanian culture and the lead singer of Steppenwolf
alicebateman.substack.com/p/…
In Tatranska Javorina the hunting lodge of Christian von Hohenlohe, prominent local landowner in the late 19th century, the man who was behind Hungarian attempts to redraw the border in the Tatras, and his grave nearby
A new craft beer flavoured with Syrian mint to commemorate Wojtek the Bear, a legend of the Polish Army who carried at Montecassino
At Grodno Castle in Poland today , with a plaque celebrating the return of ancient Piast lands after a 7 century Banylonian captivity, a quasi religious aspect of Recovered Territories ideology
Tomorrow I will be in Niederschlesien/Dolny Śląsk in a town that still looks German. The trauma of the expelees was real and should not be mocked. Neither can post war expulsions of ethnic Germans be seen in isolation from earlier ethnic cleansing and forced population movements
Alice Bateman retweeted
Remember this next time ru casts itself as "defender of Christians" in Ukraine. To boot, the destroyed church building belonged to the church in Ukraine, which is still aligned with ROC.
8 wickets down so the father of a Derby based friend with tickets for the Sunday said "it'll all be over in 10 minutes. Not worth going." So they didn't. She still hasn't got over it!
And on the subject of Communist Czechoslovakia and British academics maybe a good time for the @BBC to show Professional Foul?
Sad to hear of the death of Sir Anthony Kenny, Master of @BalliolOxford who I got to meet once a term at Handshaking (which didn't involve shaking his hand). He was the last survivor of the Prague 3 deported from Czechoslovakia in 1981 fo teaching at the underground university.
Sad to hear of the death of Sir Anthony Kenny, Master of @BalliolOxford who I got to meet once a term at Handshaking (which didn't involve shaking his hand). He was the last survivor of the Prague 3 deported from Czechoslovakia in 1981 fo teaching at the underground university.
Alice Bateman retweeted
A playbook repeated from Turkey to Norway to Belarus.
Rather than recognising it Europe’s right took an opportunity to pile on to a centre-left leader they resent: domestic troubles aside, Sanchez has outperformed them on economic growth while seeing a green energy switch pay off
Alice Bateman retweeted
UNESCO has added Poland’s modernist port city of Gdynia to its World Heritage List, recognising its pioneering interwar architecture.
The recognition comes as Gdynia marks 100 years since gaining city rights
notesfrompoland.com/2026/07/…
Alice Bateman retweeted
Count Binface's sense of humour deserves to be recognized by the @UNESCO World Heritage list.
Here it is. My manifesto for the 2026 Clacton By-Election. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Join me, clean up Clacton and let's make 13th August Bin Day! #VoteBinface #VoteyMcVoteface #YesWeTinCan
Every day is a school day and I have just found out that Steppenwolf's lead singer John Kay was born in Tilsit, East Prussia in 1944. Surely the only East Prussian born rock star? This may be worth a blog post! #Steppenwolf