Geography · Science · Nature
Professor of Planetary Science Paul Byrne explains that what we see in this photograph by the astrophotographer Sebastian Voltmer is not a comet but Mercury. The reason it has a tail is that micrometeorites bombard the planet's surface and throw tiny fragments of it out into space. These
NB! · Archaeology · Archive · Heritage
Architecture · Heritage · Paris · Humour
An amusing story. In Paris, on the Rue Mouffetard, the "golden" bulls that were the trademark of an old butcher's shop, which operated from the 18th century until the 1970s, vanished from its historic façade, a listed monument of architecture, in the course of restoration work.
Books · Society · People
A very sad message from the creator of the nationally beloved project "Flibusta", known by the pseudonym Stiver. Stiver has written about his grave illness and about the fact that Flibusta will most likely soon cease to exist. Launched in 2009, the site with its free library of
Books · Observations
upd. Thanks to my subscribers, the book was sent to me within 15 minutes. The Russian edition has a different cover, but the contents have lost nothing by it
Archive · Monarchies · Society · People
Peter I's autograph drawing of a tricolour flag with the colours indicated, and of a flag with the diagonal Saint Andrew's cross, 1699. Collection of the Archive of Ancient Acts. The sketch of the three-striped white-blue-red flag is drawn on the reverse of
Faith · Observations · Humour
The Nun of Guisch Abbey Keeps on Reading Even After Death. If you happen to know one, do forward her this post
Archive · Books · People · Humour
George Bernard Shaw Has Climbed onto the Windowsill. There is absolutely nothing to see here, move along. The photograph dates from 1906; Bernard Shaw is 61 in it.
NB! · Archive · Cinema · People
Seeing this tattered poster of Sophia Loren in Portugal in the summer of 1956, Agnès Varda decided to wait for someone to walk past, so as to get a good shot of the scene. The first to appear was a barefoot woman whose movements, by a strange coincidence, echoed the
Architecture · Books
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and
NB! · Moscow · Observations · Nature
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