Aristocracy · Books · Monarchies · Humour

Fyodor Tyutchev's family link to Boris Johnson through Ernestine von Pfeffel

What connects Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev and Boris Johnson, apart from perpetually dishevelled hair? To a certain extent, they may be called relations, by way of Tyutchev's second wife, the former Baroness Ernestine von Pfeffel. Ernestine's own brother, the Bavarian Baron Karl Maximilian von Pfeffel, who was

NB! · Cinema · Books · Pop Culture · Humour

After Death, the Witch-kings of Angmar End Up on Public Transport

Archive · Paris · Humour

"There is no black maw that will devour all the gendarmes!" "There is, but it is temporarily closed"

Photograph by Robert Doisneau, 1952

Painting by Rubens: a nude, grey-bearded Saturn with a scythe on a long shaft sinks his teeth into the chest of a screaming infant.

NB! · Art · Madrid · Museums · Humour

The Subject of Saturn Devouring His Son in Rubens and Goya Compared

Saturn Devouring His Son, as performed by Rubens and Goya. Next to the second, the first looks like an innocent nibble

Art · Ethnography · Humour

Mummified gnome in a tiny coffin proved to be the work of a Swedish prop artist

And what have we here? A mummified gnome in a little 27-centimetre coffin, with a note that reads: "This little house gnome was found by my father, Jan Petersson, in the winter of 1866, in the wall of an old barn. He was already dead." It is

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

When you realise there is now nothing to spend your TsUM bonus points on

Observations · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Style is when a delighted Lyudmila Gurchenko poses beside her brand-new VAZ 2109 with a Chanel 2.55 handbag

Confess: what caught your eye first?

NB! · Observations · Humour

Everyone Has a Neighbour Like This

Society · Paris · Humour

Five French presidents elected twice before Macron's possible second term

"If Macron wins, he will become the second President of France to serve a second term: until now only Jacques Chirac managed it, who led the country from 1995 to 2007," writes Alexey Pivovarov on his Telegram channel. And he is mistaken. In fact, François Mitterrand, too, was

NB! · Faith · Monarchies · Moscow · Observations · Humour

Georgy Mikhailovich Romanov and his wife Victoria Romanovna at the Easter table

Georgy Mikhailovich Romanov and his wife Victoria Romanovna at the Easter table. Judging by the economy-class bimetallic radiator, the cyan-style refurbishment of the flat and the restrained laying of the table, I would venture that the heir of the Romanovs and the Hohenzollerns has not, after all, left

NB! · Observations · Humour

I hope the goose took its revenge on the wretch

Art · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

In reality, this is exactly the expression kings wear

Thanks are due to the sixteenth-century Flemish artist Cornelis Massys for capturing the loathsome Henry VIII