Books · Observations · People · Humour

Charles Baudelaire’s lines on perishable beauty, on the 154th anniversary of his death

But remember: you too, exuding contagion, will lie a rotting corpse, you, sun of my eyes, my living star, you, radiant seraph. You too, my beauty, you too will be touched by decay, And you will rot down to the bones, Dressed in flowers to the sound of mournful prayers,

Oval miniature of a girl with long fair hair, a lace collar and a dress embroidered with flowers, against a blue background, with the date 1619 at right.

Art · Observations · Humour

Miniature portrait of a girl in a lace collar, dated 1619

I'll wear it loose! What a charming little girl from the year 1619

NB! · Observations · Humour

I do love the discussions in my favourite group, above all for the insanely important information

I do love the discussions in my favourite group, above all for the insanely important information. For example, about what can give a man a nervous disorder

Portrait of a man with long hair in a black cap and dark clothing against a blue sky with clouds.

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Portrait of an Unknown Man by Giovanni Bellini, made between 1475 and 1500

A truly splendid hairdo and headgear, right at the top of the mode. Should I ever decide to change my style, this portrait of an unknown man, dated approximately 1475-1500 and painted by the Venetian artist Giovanni Bellini, may well serve as my point of reference

Monarchies · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Augustus, Caracalla, Hadrian and other Roman emperors depicted as cartoon characters

One can always do something more productive, but then we should never have learnt which of the Roman emperors makes the most charming cartoon character: Augustus, Caracalla, Hadrian, Vespasian, Otho, Nero or Galba? Alas, the outcome resembles a sitting of the Federation Council, and one can look with any warmth

NB! · Observations · Humour

When you have already visited every abode of fashionable vice that night, but towards morning you still end up at Simach

Monarchies · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

An advert has popped up on Instagram for a maker of costume jewellery who has produced a replica of the crown of the British Empire

An advert has popped up on Instagram for a maker of costume jewellery who has produced a replica of the crown of the British Empire. A highly questionable bit of handiwork, though it would be most interesting to see the customer (actually, no). I shall not give a link to

The East · Observations · Science · Humour

Reconstructing Sumerian phonetics from Akkadian, with four vowels and no sound O

Ever wondered what the Sumerian language sounded like? There is a simple lesson on Sumerian pronunciation. Nobody now living has heard Sumerian spoken, naturally, with the possible exception of Brendan Fraser, who has been known to go gadding about with mummies through worlds several millennia old. So reconstructions of Sumerian

Books · Observations · Society · Humour

Portuguese President Rebelo de Sousa takes Russian books on Dostoevsky and Yesenin

Nothing special, just the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in the company of our ambassador Mikhail Kamynin, loading up on Russian books. What, one wonders, will Señor Rebelo de Sousa (by Portuguese standards, still a short surname) be reading tonight? Apart from my Telegram channel, naturally. I can

Architecture · Moscow · Heritage · Society Pages · Humour

Three stages of one cake: scroll through the photos from the latest to the earliest and you get, quite literally, the restoration chronology of the federally protected heritage site in whose shape the cake was made

In the year of its centenary, the Library of Foreign Literature has at last opened the restored late eighteenth-century house at Nikoloyamskaya, 6. The whole official upper crust of culture turned out for the occasion: the minister, deputies, heads of federal agencies, directors of institutions. Even Vladimir Medinsky sent

NB! · Observations · Science · Humour

By 1979 Computers Had Become Positively Tiny

By 1979 computers had become positively tiny. And the floppy disk! A mere trifle! I even mistook it for a nano-SIM

NB! · Observations · Humour

Charles Baudelaire’s lines on perishable beauty, on the 154th anniversary of his death

Miniature portrait of a girl in a lace collar, dated 1619

I do love the discussions in my favourite group, above all for the insanely important information

Portrait of an Unknown Man by Giovanni Bellini, made between 1475 and 1500

Augustus, Caracalla, Hadrian and other Roman emperors depicted as cartoon characters

When you have already visited every abode of fashionable vice that night, but towards morning you still end up at Simach

An advert has popped up on Instagram for a maker of costume jewellery who has produced a replica of the crown of the British Empire

Reconstructing Sumerian phonetics from Akkadian, with four vowels and no sound O

Portuguese President Rebelo de Sousa takes Russian books on Dostoevsky and Yesenin

Three stages of one cake: scroll through the photos from the latest to the earliest and you get, quite literally, the restoration chronology of the federally protected heritage site in whose shape the cake was made

By 1979 Computers Had Become Positively Tiny

Big Clay, at the Very Least, Has Been Immortalised on Yandex Maps