White ring with a rough, uneven surface, hollows and dark specks, set with three purple amethyst crystals.

NB! · Art · Pop Culture · Humour

Modern ring with amethyst in an ancient style priced at 185 dollars

No, this is not an eleventh-century Viking wedding ring, but the work of modern jewellers. It costs $185

NB! · Society · Paris · Humour

François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy, the 24th and 23rd Presidents of France, at the inauguration of Emmanuel Macron, the 25th President of France

NB! · Art · Observations · People · Humour

The Young Napoleon on the Bridge at Arcole Looks More Like the Musician Rod Stewart than Like Himself in the Later Portraits

A figure in a white stormtrooper helmet, ruff collar and cloak holds a blaster against a dark background, in the manner of an old portrait.

Art · Pop Culture · Humour

Works by the French photographer Sacha Goldberger

She will ask whether you love the Renaissance or Star Wars more... and will leave without ever hearing your answer about the works of the French photographer Sacha Goldberger

Archaeology · Art · Pop Culture · Humour

Anthropomorphic mud glyph from an Alabama cave dated to between 700 and 900 AD

An anthropomorphic figure with a radiating semicircle in place of a backside, from unnamed cave No. 19 in Alabama, signals insistently to the people of the 21st century, who likewise worship an idol of ample stern embodied in the figure of Kim Kardashian. Looking at this mud glyph, one might

Art · Monarchies · Observations · Paris · Humour

Vincenzo Vela's Sculpture of Napoleon's Death at the 1867 Exhibition

At the slightest indisposition I feel like Napoleon on Saint Helena in Vincenzo Vela's sculpture The Last Moments of Napoleon I. This sculptural portrait of the dying Bonaparte was a great success at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867, and the statue was eventually acquired by Emperor

Film still: guests in eighteenth-century costume at a laden table with a roast pig, greenery and glasses, one lying face down on the table.

NB! · Cinema · Mores · Humour

A Breton Feast of the Time of Louis XV in Bertrand Tavernier’s film “Let Joy Reign Supreme”

How do you prefer it: at the table, on the table or under the table? A typical Breton feast of the days of Louis XV in Bertrand Tavernier's film "Let Joy Reign Supreme"

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Arnold Böcklin's Sleeping Forest, 1885

Arnold Böcklin's Sleeping Forest, 1885. And the unicorn is not as handsome as they say

Still life with red berries and a white flower on a stone ledge against a dark background.

NB! · Art · Observations · Nature · Humour

Dutch seventeenth-century painter Adriaen Coorte and his still life with berries

Bought strawberries at the market for 150 roubles a kilo; they say they are from Greece, though the price tag says "Azerbaijan". Tasteless, so clearly Greece: all the fruit there is plastic, nothing but the smell. Anyway, until our own strawberries ripen, let us look at the seventeenth-

Cinema · Books · Observations · Humour

Books Issued: from 3 to 18 Hours

Judging by this still from the novella "Obsession", Shurik, standing in for the old watchwoman in "Operation Y", really could have told the burglars which library they might stroll into at 3 a.m. Such are the recurring details in the plot of Leonid Gaidai'

Screenshot of question 10 of 24 from Life in the UK Test 3 asking what language Iron Age people spoke, with four answer options.

Observations · Education · Society · Humour

Question on the language of Iron Age Britons in the British citizenship test

I'd heard that getting British citizenship was hard, but THIS hard! The test that forms a compulsory part of the application for British citizenship asks which language was spoken by the inhabitants of Iron Age Britain. Do you still think that history will never come in useful in

NB! · Observations · Humour