Faith · Art · Mores · Humour

The Pluralist

A satirical image mocking members of the clergy who draw several incomes at the expense of their primary duties. A priest balances in the heavens, resting upon the spires of four different churches while eyeing a fifth

NB! · Monarchies · Heritage · People · Humour

In This Room, on 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria Died

In this room, on 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died. Well, with walls that colour, it is hardly surprising

NB! · Art · People · Humour

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi. Promised not to nag

Stone wall with an Anecdotes Wall sign, metal plaques with text and two illustrations, one showing a horse-drawn carriage.

NB! · The East · Observations · Humour

Wall of Anecdotes in Three Languages on Gyumri's Central Square

The central square of Gyumri, a wall of jokes in three languages. At the very least it is charming, at the very most, inspired!

NB! · Architecture · Faith · Humour

A Lion with a Brilliant Hairdo in the Twelfth-Century Church of St Michael in the English Village of Tefont Evias

In the painting, a nude Adam and Eve recline under a tree, a cat lies at their feet, and goats stand to the right against a landscape.

Art · Observations · Humour

The cat, the goat and the serpent among the details of a painting of Adam and Eve

The Fall of Man, Hendrick Goltzius, 1616. I cannot decide which detail is my favourite: the cat who would rather not witness this disgrace, the peeping goat, or the rosy-cheeked serpent-tempter with the face of Jennifer Coolidge. But it is certainly not Adam and Eve, straight off the

NB! · Paris · People · Humour

What would the French do without Brigitte Macron's carbonara recipe? Probably what humanity has been doing without her views on the Indo-Pakistani conflict

Magazine page with close-up photographs of four Beatles' lips beside their portraits, captioned Paul, George, Ringo and John.

Archive · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

In 1965, 16 Magazine suggested kissing your favourite Beatle

Kiss your favourite Beatle. 16 Magazine, 1965. My kissing fairy, it seems, has gone off to Ringo Starr. And yours?

Books · Monarchies · Humour

King James I Stuart wrote the Daemonologie, a book on witches and witchcraft, and the Emperor Claudius, of the patrician house of the Julii-Claudii, one on games of chance, but the strangest work ever to come from the pen of a royal…

Cinema · Books · Moscow · Humour

The famous restaurant guide of Duchemin, France's most authoritative restaurant critic, in the hilarious comedy "The Wing or the Thigh" with Louis de Funès, somehow ended up in Moscow in the same display case as Stepan Veselovsky's…

The famous restaurant guide of Duchemin, France's most authoritative restaurant critic, in the hilarious comedy "The Wing or the Thigh" with Louis de Funès, somehow ended up in Moscow in the same display case as Stepan Veselovsky's reference work on persons who served under

Mores · People · Humour

Samuel Bentham began sleeping on the floor before his 1774 trip to Russia

Samuel Bentham, brother of the English thinker Jeremy Bentham, served in Russia under Prince Potemkin. When Samuel was invited to come to Russia in 1774, he began preparing for the journey well in advance and took to sleeping on the floor, supposing that in that distant, unknown country they had

Art · Monarchies · Society · Humour

A Nazi Vampire in the Guise of a Bat Visits King Carol II of Romania in His Bedchamber by Night

The illustration evidently alludes to the antisemitic laws adopted by Carol II in 1940