NB! · Humour

It Turns Out Rita Was Switched Too

NB! · Paris · People · Pop Culture

Charles Aznavour on the Champ de Mars in front of the Eiffel Tower

Art · Museums · Paris

Give me your portrait, I'll put it in the larder, so the children don't pinch the sweets

The Artist's Family, Noël Coypel, 1690. From the exhibition of works by Coypel from the Louvre's collection at the Grand Trianon

NB! · Faith · The East · Art

The Archangel Michael in China

Art · Humour

Falling from the Height of His Glory

Falling from the height of his glory. Caricature from the series "The History of Comedy". Auguste de Valmont, engraver Alois Senefelder

NB! · Architecture · Art · Moscow

Among the ceramic miniatures that adorn the hall of Borovitskaya metro station are tiles depicting electrical circuit diagrams, tractor cogwheels, car tyres, icebreakers, oil derricks, cosmonauts... jet aircraft, stars, fish, birds…

The East · Cinema · Monarchies · Pop Culture

Gillian Anderson recalls working with Michael Gambon on Viceroy's House in 2017

The film is devoted to the end of British rule in India. Lord Mountbatten, who presided over the partition of British India into Pakistan and India, is played by Hugh Bonneville. His wife, Lady Edwina, is played by Gillian Anderson. Michael Gambon plays Lord Ismay, the Chief of Staff, who

NB! · Archaeology

Stone Age people simply did it...

Equestrian portrait of a man in a dark coat holding a hat, seated on a dark horse against a cloudy sky.

Art · Monarchies · Humour

Portrait of Joseph Bonaparte on which Goya later painted the head of Wellington

What a plump little horse in Francisco Goya's equestrian portrait of the 1st Duke of Wellington. It was originally a portrait of Joseph Bonaparte, but Goya later painted Wellington's head over Bonaparte's

Coming Up · Books · Observations

Pelevin's Third Transhumanist Novel and the Secret of the Eleusinian Mysteries

Viktor Pelevin's twentieth novel, "Journey to Eleusis", about a corporate simulation of Ancient Rome, has at last reached all bookshops, Bookmate and the Yandex Plus subscription, and for the first time all at once. The Eleusinian Mysteries, which for many centuries were a kind of centre