NB! · Geography · Museums

Swindon Railway Museum

Watercolour drawing of a temple: gods on the pediment, metopes with centaurs below, and round shields inscribed with Greek city names, including Chalcedon and Halicarnassus.

NB!

Colour reconstruction of a Greek temple pediment with figures of gods

Watercolour of the Parthenon façade restored in colour, with a statue of Athena holding a spear, shield and serpent at the centre.

NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Museums · Paris

Colour restoration of the Parthenon at the Paris-Athens exhibition at the Louvre

The Parthenon in colour. From the “Paris-Athens” exhibition at the Louvre

NB! · Faith · Monarchies · Society

"Jewish communities everywhere have offered up their prayers for His late Majesty, and they will now offer up their sincere prayers for Her Majesty the Queen as she takes upon herself the heavy burden of ruling the countries of the British Commonwealth"

Archive · In the Press · London · Society

London Evening News in 1959 on the Moskvich and the Volga, awarded the Grand Prix in Brussels

The Moskvich and the Volga in a 1959 London Evening News survey of Soviet cars. Despite the popularity of the GAZ-21 after the World Fair in Brussels, where our Volga won the Grand Prix and was declared the best car in Europe for 1958, the English newspaper does not

Close-up painted portrait of an elderly woman with white curled hair, a diamond crown and blue clothing, in expressive brushstrokes.

NB! · Art · London · Monarchies · Observations

Portrait of Elizabeth II by Lucian Freud from the early 2000s

Elizabeth II through the eyes of Lucian Freud, 2000–2001. Can such a dreadful portrait really please anyone?

NB! · Observations · Pop Culture

The Queue for Labkovsky

Monarchies · Mores · Society

Elizabeth II held a tea party at Sandringham on the eve of the 70th anniversary of her reign

The Queen hosted a tea party in the ballroom of Sandringham House on the eve of her Platinum Jubilee. On 6 February Elizabeth II will become the first British monarch to reign for 70 years. The Queen traditionally spends the anniversary of her accession at Sandringham, where her father King

NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Mores

Princess Anne, Prince Charles and the Dogs

NB! · Architecture · Art · Observations · Nature

In the winter of 2012 the fountain by Bartholdi, creator of the Statue of Liberty, on Place des Terreaux in the centre of French Lyon froze most picturesquely

London · Mores · People · Pop Culture

Maggie Smith with her son Toby Stephens

Maggie Smith with her son Toby Stephens. What? Yes! Incidentally, Maggie's elder son Chris Larkin is also an actor. When Toby was studying at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, a rumour went round that one of the students was Maggie Smith's child. Everyone

NB! · Cinema · Pop Culture · Humour

Alexandr Radayev