Faith Monarchies Observations Ethnography Humour

I doubt you will see anything more touching today than Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, pressing noses with indigenous New Zealanders, air force officers and elders, during the ceremonial…

The hongi is the traditional Maori greeting, based on the belief that the nose is the centre of the body and that the divine breath passes through it, so that touching the tips of noses makes people close: they have shared one divine breath and are, as it were, united in it.

Which prompts a question: whose breath is it better to share, that of an ordinary Maori or of one of the Windsor dynasts?

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

I doubt you will see anything more touching today than Charles, Prince of Wales, and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, pressing noses with indigenous New Zealanders, air force officers and elders, during the ceremonial…

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s