Rob Allen

Director of Client Development @clickthrough Chartered Marketer, Dad, Friend. Practitioner of the Martial Arts. Love Cricket, Movies, Music & Tech

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

#RIPChrisCornell remembering the Albert Hall. So lucky to have seen this.

[Voices of WW2 @VoicesofWW2]

Seventy-two. That is how many separate wounds John Cruickshank had in him, two of them through his lungs, while he lined up a burning flying boat for a second run at a U-boat that had just shot his aircraft to pieces. Most men have one of those wounds and they are finished. He had seventy-two and he pressed the attack.

He was 24, a former bank clerk from Aberdeen, flying a Catalina flying boat out of the Shetland Islands with Coastal Command. The job was the long, freezing, mind-numbing patrol, fourteen hours over the grey Atlantic hunting the U-boats that were strangling Britain. On the 17th of July 1944, far out over empty water, they caught one on the surface, U-361, and Cruickshank took the big slow flying boat down to attack.

The first run failed. The depth charges would not release. Any sane man makes a note and turns for home. Cruickshank swung the aircraft around and came back for a second pass, low and straight, and this time the submarine's gunners were waiting. Flak ripped through the Catalina. It killed the navigator, wounded half the crew, and tore into Cruickshank again and again, those seventy-two wounds, two punching into his lungs, ten into his legs.

And he flew the attack home anyway. Bleeding everywhere, in agony, with the fuselage holed and on fire, he held the aircraft dead level, aimed, and released the depth charges himself. They straddled the U-boat perfectly. It broke apart and sank beneath him.

Then came the part that should have killed him. He collapsed from blood loss, and the wounded co-pilot, who had never landed a Catalina, took the controls for the long flight back. Cruickshank refused the morphine that would have knocked him out, because he knew the man flying needed him. Drifting in and out, he had himself carried back up to the cockpit again and again through the night to help nurse the shot-up aircraft down, and at dawn they got it onto the water safely. He had lost so much blood the doctors said he had no business being alive.

He lived. He took the Victoria Cross from the King, went quietly back to banking after the war, and rarely spoke of it. And he kept on living, and living, and living. John Cruickshank died in 2025 at the age of 105, the last man on earth wearing a Victoria Cross earned in the Second World War. Seventy-two wounds over the Atlantic, and he outlasted every other hero of that war by decades.

[Ben Kentish @BenKentish]

To put the £2.8 million Jodrell Bank budget in context, £7.2 million is currently allocated for “bespoke stationery” for MPs.

[Ben Graham @BenGrahamUK]

Pakistan has its own space programme, yet we send it £133 million a year in aid while shutting down Britain's largest space telescope because we “can't afford” a few million.

This telescope helped inspire generations of scientists.

If we keep cutting investment in our own scientific infrastructure while other nations push ahead, we'll only fall further behind.

I hope this decision is reversed. Britain should be investing in its future, not dismantling it.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

Goodbye Bill. Lord knows I loved The Goodies as a kid.

[Chris Packham @ChrisGPackham]

A renegade polymath with binoculars and a beard , Bill was invariably funny and occasionally furious . He loved birds and loathed those who harmed them . He was delightfully unpredictable , sparky , smart and at times a bit spiky . Critically he really knew his stuff , and his passion was true - he didn’t just pick up his binoculars on telly , he went birding whenever he could . So he was genuine and that’s why we loved him , he never needed a script , and took scant interest in any he was given . He didn’t like rules and often neglected to play by them . This may have frustrated the serious and the worthy but it always amused his audience - he was an utter joy to be with . I recall finding a Black Woodpecker in a damp Dutch park with him once , he gazed at it intently , sighed , put down his bins , turned to me and just smiled . A massive grin . No words , just a beautiful childlike bliss . That says all you need to know about Bill Oddie .

Sadly we’ve not only lost a goodie , we’ve lost one of the besties .

[Raja Miah @recusant_raja]

@jordanbpeterson They did more than just sacrifice little White girls at the altar of multiculturalism. They sold them for votes.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

@wasimakramlive @lancscricket A seriously good group of cricketers, from a wonderful era of cricket.

[Jenn Pellegrino 🇺🇸 @JennPellegrino]

The Economist's editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes went to a private all-girls boarding school in Shropshire where fees run up to £45,000 per year (about $60,000).

She was born and raised in Shropshire, one of England's most affluent rural counties. She attacks @elonmusk saying he's wrong and the UK is thriving. Elon hits back that she lives a cloistered existence.

He's absolutely right. She's Oxford and Harvard educated. She doesn't live in the towns where migrant grooming gangs operate. She can't see the destruction from her ivory tower.

So many elites in this country and Europe are removed from the decay their leftist policies have brought. Good on @elonmusk for calling her out.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

Absolutely bang on.
At least Jeremy Hunt had run a business. Rishi, an investment banker. Rupert Lowe, investment banker and businessman. All worked in high pressure, performance led industry.
Why no one ever in Labour?
Unless you know what it’s like, you’ll never understand.

[Daniel Priestley @DanielPriestley]

Before Windows95, before Oasis released Wonder Wall and before OJ Simpson faced trial, our new PM Andy Burnham had a job. He had a job as a journalist working for a little publishing company for 3 years.

This is the only job any of the new UK Government Cabinet has had.

Other than those three years, more than 30 years ago the entire cabinet has only ever worked in tax payer funded roles.

None of them have ever had to make a sale. None of them have been paid to pour a pint. None have felt a sick feeling about making payroll. None have been answerable to investors.

In the UK 50% of the jobs are small businesses and almost ALL of the jobs growth is small businesses. None of them has ever started, owned or run one. Wouldn’t it be nice if just one of them had some experience in making a small business profitably grow before having a crack at the 7th largest economy.

Imagine what it must feel like to KNOW that your wage is paid for by the tax-payer. Imagine the certainty and security working for a government that never fires anyone for anything. Imagine how it would feel knowing you could blow out a budget with no real consequences or you could completely screw up a project and nothing bad would happen. Imagine that level of insulation and comfort for decades.

I can’t. I’ve been in business for the last 25 years. If I don’t sell I don’t eat. If I screw up I face very real consequences very fast. Millions of small businesses are being asked to get out there and hire people and grow the economy by a team of people who’ve never had a proper job. Surely something isn’t right with that?

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

Bravo 👏

[Rory Sutherland @rorysutherland]

Most enjoyable places to urinate, in order:

Your own swimming pool
Your own garden
The sea
Someone else's swimming pool
Someone else's garden
A toilet

When defecating, the order is reversed.

[Normal Gay Psychiatrist @NormalGayPsych]

I'm gay. Always have been. Love my husband, built a life together like normal people do.
And I'm so fed up with the Alphabet Mafia.
Pride went from 'leave us alone' to 'affirm kids, castrate teens, erase women, and call me a bigot if I say no.'
Transing children isn't care — it's child abuse.
Men in women's sports isn't inclusion — it's cheating.
'Minor attracted persons' isn't a sexuality — it's pedophilia rebranded.
I didn't fight for gay rights so the movement could become this circus of sterilization, compelled speech, and grooming.
Real gay people want peace, not endless revolution.
If that makes me a 'traitor,' so be it. Truth over tribe.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

Wayne Rooney 😂😂😂😂😊

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

lol

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

@OfficialHuey Saw you there! It was a fabulous, hot as heck weekend. Total 90s freedom! Great times.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

@ash19705 @OfficialHuey I remember the twister! It was so hot like we were in another country, or planet. I remember Cypress Hill playing, and the ‘rise Buddha, rise’ chant as their kind of spinal tap Buddha got raised on to the stage.
The amount of weed smoke coming from the crowd was a fine sight.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

What a phenomenal cricketer. Saw him once in Barbados, alongside Joel Garner. Great men.

[Piers Morgan @piersmorgan]

RIP Sir Garfield Sobers, 89.
The greatest all-round cricketer the world has ever seen.. a brilliant fielder in any position, a magnificent swashbuckling batsman, and both a superb fast bowler AND spin bowler. Garry was a lovely man, too, and a West Indies hero. Very sad news.

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

No surprise

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Keir Starmer — ever a man of his word til the end.
In June 2023 he explicitly ruled out ever indulging in a resignation honours list (BBC Radio 4 Today).
Today he’s marked his resignation with 21 peerages, overwhelmingly public-sector/legal jobsworths. Barely a single wealth creator among them.
Classic line up of the New Establishment which has run the country under Labour and Tory governments for the past three decades and is now firmly in control. Largely (if not entirely) with the following characteristics:
*Career almost entirely in public sector, often taking salaries from several sinecures at once as they work up the greasy taxpayer-funded pole.
*Associated with various ‘right-on’ causes.
*Largely middle class, London chattering class, Oxbridge well represented (of course).
*Fashionable left but not too left. Good mainstream Labour links.
Thus is the antediluvian House of Lords perpetuated by the Left as well as the Right as a comfortable state-funded retirement home for the well-connected ‘good and great’ past their sell-by date — when it should simply be abolished.

[Will Self @wself]

https://t.co/JrllatiX9Q

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

Test match cricket is a fine thing https://t.co/jqOAr5O7Fa

[Dr Jordan B Peterson @jordanbpeterson]

To the Americans:

I've travelled all over the world. I've familiarized myself with many places, and met many people. And I'm a Canadian, although I’m privileged to reside once again in the States.

And here's something I've noticed, and it’s a key element of America's continuing greatness:

You bloody Americans value success, and you believe in its existence.

This is something that doesn't really happen anywhere else in the world. Even in other free democracies—the United Kingdom; Finland, Sweden, and Norway; Australia, New Zealand and Canada; Germany, France, and the Netherlands (great countries all)—a counterproductive cynicism too often reigns.

Success is equated with exploitation.
Ambition is looked upon with contempt.

This happens sometimes in the United States too—particularly among the miserable progressives, who confuse their resentment, ingratitude and unearned skepticism with wisdom.

But in your great country, by and large, striving is admired and success celebrated.

This means that more people strive and succeed in the US than anywhere else. And it's increasingly obvious. You remain stunningly more innovative and productive than any people anywhere else on the planet.

And so I say, as all should who are fortunate enough to live in the western world, let alone America:

Thank God for the United States.

Thank God for the wisdom of its founders.
Thank God for its faith in the free market and in the natural rights of man.
Happy birthday, you damn Yankees and Southerners.

Long may your admirable country dominate the world.

Long may your freedom and hope provide an example to those suffering everywhere at the hands of their malevolent states.

May your two and a half centuries of unparallelled success be just the beginning.

Your country is the light of the world, and the city on the hill.

Thank God for the USA.

Happy 250th.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

[Rob Allen @RobAllen73]

Ugh… the FIA 🤡🤡🤡

[Michel Roux Jr @michelrouxjr]

So it’s possible to end the race under safety car #AbuDhabi21 🤬