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mood for this winter
Art · Museums · People · Ethnography
The Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom
The Three Princesses of the Underground Kingdom. Viktor Vasnetsov, 1884. The painting was composed on a motif from the Russian folk tale of Ivan Tsarevich, who descends into the underground kingdom and meets there the Golden, Silver and Copper Princesses. Vasnetsov took up the subject while fulfilling a commission from
Art · London · Mores
English game hunt the slipper and a quotation credited to Shakespeare but written by Dryden
Hunt the slipper, or Find the Slipper: an old English game in which the “customer” must find a slipper, shoe, toy or present that the “cobblers” seated in a circle pass secretly to one another under their feet. One may not only pass the slipper along furtively but also pretend
NB! · Archive · People
Fidel Castro plays basketball in Kraków in 1972
Geography · Monarchies · Society · Paris
Versailles rail disaster after which France stopped locking railway carriages
On 8 May 1842, France's first railway disaster occurred on the line between Versailles and Paris. The train, returning from the celebration of King Louis-Philippe's birthday at Versailles, was running with two locomotives, one at the head of the train and one at the rear.
NB! · Architecture · Humour
There is an old joke about the Parthenon: when they finally finish building it, it will look magnificent!
NB! · Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Humour
Soldier faints at a parade attended by Elizabeth II in a 1970 photograph
A soldier faints during a parade attended by Elizabeth II. This famous shot of 1970 could, in principle, quite easily have served as the cover of a British punk rock band's record
NB! · Monarchies · Mores · Humour
When 17-year-old Prince Charles was flying to study in Australia, a girl he had never met, Star Fluke by name, kissed him at Hawaii airport and said her dream of kissing a future king had come true
NB! · Art · Cinema · Observations · Humour
Many years have passed, yet I still cannot fathom how it came about that in François Boucher's painting two people emerged from the sea on the back of a single fellow, while on James Cameron's enormous wooden door there was no room for two?
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Lyudmila Petrushevskaya: Our Answer to Buddy Winkle
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