NB! · Aristocracy · Cinema · Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour

And yes, the ancestor of Kit Harington, who played Jon Snow in "Game of Thrones", a poet and courtier of the sixteenth century, Sir John Harington, invented the first flushing lavatory for the aged Queen Elizabeth I

Books · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Sir John Harington's joke, which he played on James VI

Sir John Harington's joke, which he played on James VI. At least, so it is recorded in the book by the admirable Christina Larner, a historian and one of the first to take up the subject of witchcraft. The court poet, incidentally an ancestor of our beloved Kit

Archive · Faith · People · Ethnography

Theodor Herzl on a 1902 Warsaw Simchat Torah flag and the end of the Torah reading cycle

The founder of the World Zionist Organization, Theodor Herzl, is shown alongside the biblical figures of Moses and Aaron on a flag printed in Warsaw for the celebration of Simchat Torah in 1902. Imagine Herzl's glory at that moment, when his face found itself between a biblical prophet

NB! · Observations · Education

do not dare forget your teachers, they worry about us and remember

Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Education · Humour

I hardly know how to comment on this Facebook post by the architect and former MARKHI professor Evgeny Ass

I hardly know how to comment on this Facebook post by the architect and former MARKHI professor Evgeny Ass. The gatehouse of MARKHI, which occupies the Volynsky-Vorontsov estate, has turned into this. The structure has undergone several transformations of late; I remember that not long ago it looked like

Museums · Observations · Pop Culture

Trebuchet at Château de Castelnaud and a nearly identical device in China in the 5th century

Remember the trebuchet? A genuine siege engine straight out of Age of Empires, Cossacks and Stronghold: Crusader may be seen, for instance, at the open-air war museum in the French Château de Castelnaud. What I remember the trebuchet for most is its spectacular shot with a dead cow, giving

Magazine page with text on 1920s fashion above a photo of a woman in a tiara and pink gloves looking upward, beside a crystal decanter.

NB!

Woman in a tiara and long gloves: magazine page on 1920s fashion

In the Press · Cinema · Observations · Pop Culture

The new Vogue carries a touching piece by Yana Lukina on the most anticipated release of the year, the feature-length "Downton Abbey", in which the Crawley family prepares to receive George V under its roof

The new Vogue carries a touching piece by Yana Lukina on the most anticipated release of the year, the feature-length "Downton Abbey", in which the Crawley family prepares to receive George V under its roof. The material is good; I was even surprised that it was Vogue,

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · People · Humour

Marie Antoinette as a Hyena

Marie Antoinette as a hyena. The hairstyle is odd, of course

NB! · Art · Cinema · Monarchies · Museums · Paris · Pop Culture

On 16 October the exhibition "Marie Antoinette, Metamorphosis of an Image" opened in Paris, bringing together hundreds of images of the queen, from the classic portraits of Vigée Le Brun to excerpts from films about Marie Antoinette and the manga "The Ros

Faith · Museums · Observations · Rome

In the cramped corridor of the Church of the Sacred Heart, exhibits testifying to the apparitions of souls in Purgatory are hung right on the walls

In the cramped corridor of the Church of the Sacred Heart, exhibits testifying to the apparitions of souls in Purgatory are hung right on the walls. These are pages from the prayer books of nuns, bearing the fiery fingerprints of their sisters who appeared to those at prayer after death;