A 20 kg Fridge Magnet Turns Out to Be the Base of an Ancient Column

The Rome police have detained a tourist who was carrying off an ancient chunk of marble from one of the city's archaeological sites. I am not sure what in this news item provokes greater distaste: the hapless collector of antiquities or the hired scooter.

The story is, on the whole, a simple one, almost like the opening of Gianni Rodari's fairy tale about the man who wanted to steal the Colosseum, except that in this case the hero managed to convince the gendarmes that he had stolen nothing, but had bought it for a one-euro note.

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free. So, here is 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

A 20 kg Fridge Magnet Turns Out to Be the Base of an Ancient Column

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At the close of the Strugatskys' "Roadside Picnic" the Golden Sphere is asked for this: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to leave no one aggrieved, but the digest really does come free

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