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Monarchies · Saint Petersburg · Society Pages · Humour
Wedding of Georgy Romanov and Rebecca Bettarini set for 1 October in Saint Petersburg
Not Yet Married, and the Mother-in-Law Is Already Settling into Your Forebears' Two-Room Flat. Rebecca Bettarini, also known as Victoria Romanovna, the bride of our partially recognised claimant to the headship of the Russian Imperial House, George Mikhailovich Romanov, with her mother Carla Cacciatore Bettarini outside
Observations · Society · Nature · Ethnography
The killing of a white deer by Liverpool police and its symbolism in European culture
This morning in Liverpool, police killed a white stag that had the folly to run into the city. Yes, the animal might have been temporarily sedated and carried off elsewhere, but someone took the decision to deprive it of its life. In my view, this is a very bad omen
NB! · Observations · Mores · Humour
A mother warns her son not to touch figs poisoned for her suspicious husband
What is care? It is when a mother warns her son not to touch the figs: she had, after all, been obliged to smear every fig in the garden with poison in order to dispatch a suspicious husband who would take no food that any other hand had touched
NB! · Archive · London · Museums · Pop Culture · Humour
The morning after the fire at Madame Tussaud's in London in 1925 looks much like the morning after a rave in 2021
NB! · Art · Nature · Humour
Why Does Dürer's Walrus Look So Much Like a Man from the Next Staircase Along?
Art · Observations · Mores · Humour
Late 18th-Century Satirical Print Contrasts a Libertine with a Skeleton
A satirical engraving of the late 18th century: a bon vivant with all the marks of dissipation (dice and cards, horse races, fashions and diverting novelettes) and, in opposition to him, a pensive corpse leaning on a stele bearing an edifying text. In theory, the picture is meant to remind
Archive · London · Society · People
Charlotte Despard, suffragist and anti-fascist, in Trafalgar Square in 1910 and 1933
The Anglo-Irish suffragist Charlotte Despard in Trafalgar Square in 1910 and in 1933. Across a gap of 23 years the woman lost none of her grip, her will to protest or her power to inspire a crowd. First she, a writer, pacifist, tax resister, philanthropist, socialist and vegetarian, stood
Architecture · Faith · The East · Humour
The wooden crocodile in Seville Cathedral, a gift from the Egyptian sultan to Alfonso X
In Seville Cathedral, the largest Gothic church in Europe, there hangs a crocodile. There are, of course, many treasures and relics there, such as paintings by Velázquez, Goya and Murillo and the sarcophagus of Christopher Columbus, but the crocodile is the most memorable of them all. Not a real one,
Observations · Society · Reportage · Ethnography
Authorities allocate no land for a new cemetery in a dying Russian village
The Russian village has fallen still. Among their pressing problems, the villagers name the cemetery: the authorities will not allot land for a new graveyard, though for dozens of kilometres around the village lie abandoned fields, meadows and forests. "There is no land!" Once the village had its
Education · People · Pop Culture
Shostakovich's First Symphony, a graduation work that brought the 19-year-old composer fame
Dmitri Shostakovich's First Symphony. It was first performed in May 1926, having been written as his graduation project. Its first performance was a sensation, and soon it was being played all over the country and abroad, in Berlin, Philadelphia and New York. Thus the 19-year-old composer
NB! · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Society