Archive · London · Museums · Heritage · Nature · Humour

The dead rat found by Henry Cole and the founding of Britain's National Archives

If they call you a paper-pusher (literally, an "office rat"), don't be upset. After all, there was once a rat with a fondness for paperwork who became a co-founder of the National Archives of the United Kingdom. When the public figure, inventor and all-

Fresco of the nude Adam and Eve among trees, with a haloed bearded man in a red robe raising his hand.

Faith · Art · Paris · Humour

Hippolyte Flandrin's fresco in the Paris church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés

The Lord Asks Adam and Eve to Observe Social Distancing. A fresco by the celebrated French painter Hippolyte Flandrin (1809-1864) in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the oldest church in Paris

A vast torch-lit palace beside a river of fiery lava under a stormy sky, with a warrior holding a shield on a rock in the foreground.

Art · Moscow · Observations · Humour

John Martin’s 1841 painting “Pandemonium”, after Milton’s poem

When you learn that from tomorrow Moscow is once again at +30 and above. Well, here is a painting by John Martin, not the science-fiction writer, mind you, but the Romantic painter, dated 1841. It is called Pandemonium. Yes, yes, that very capital of hell in Milton's

NB! · Humour

Every Joke Contains a Grain of Joke 😄

Art · Moscow · Museums · Observations · Science · Humour

Monster skeleton at the Darwin Museum is an artwork by Masha Bogoraz

Good Lord, What Are You? The Darwin Museum has acquired the skeleton of some unimaginable monster. According to the legend, the artefact was discovered by Darwin in the Galápagos Islands and then brought to the American Museum of Natural History, where it was unearthed by a Russian scholar, Vladimir Bogoraz,

NB! · Cinema · Observations · Humour

I hardly know which of these rare shots is the more impressive: Roman legionaries on the approaches to Hadrian's Wall, or French infantry at Waterloo?

Archaeology · The East · Museums · Heritage · Paris · Humour

Sarcophagus of King Ahiram found in Paris, buried under junk: it serves as a storeroom for brooms and mops in a littered utility room of an administrative building

The sarcophagus discovered in a Franco-Lebanese house is a cast of the original kept in the National Museum of Beirut, incidentally one of its chief treasures. The magnificent sarcophagus of Ahiram, found by the French archaeologist Pierre Montet in 1923, is considered a symbol of Franco-Lebanese friendship: that,

Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

I hope my analogies will not unduly trouble anyone, but judge for yourselves: the bird-catcher Papageno from "The Magic Flute", especially as played by Lucien Fugère, is the very image of Ernie the Giant Chicken from "Family Guy", locked in combat with…

I hope my analogies will not unduly trouble anyone, but judge for yourselves: the bird-catcher Papageno from "The Magic Flute", especially as played by Lucien Fugère, is the very image of Ernie the Giant Chicken from "Family Guy", locked in combat with Peter - well, let

Archive · Art · Observations · Humour

Baritone Fouger sang Papageno at 74 and kept performing after the age of 80

Expectation and reality: Jacques Drésa's costume design for Papageno the bird-catcher in Mozart's "The Magic Flute", and the same costume realised for Lucien Fugère in the 1922 production of the opera. To my mind, Papageno looks far more striking in the flesh. Do

A person in a Spider-Man costume reaches out to an elderly man in a white cassock and white skullcap in an arcaded courtyard.

Faith · Society · Pop Culture · Rome · Humour

Mattia Villardita visits sick children dressed as film characters

Pope Francis I Strikes a Deal with Spider-Man on Reform of the Vatican. But seriously, the man in the Spider-Man costume is a genuine superhero: Mattia Villardita, who devotes all his free time away from work to visiting sick children, whom he delights by dressing up as popular

Colour illustration signed by the artist, showing a couple embracing in a doorway while a woman in a bonnet watches from behind the door.

Art · Mores · Humour

French artist Paul-Émile Bécat and his risqué illustrations

A mature lady checks that she has not forgotten how it is done. The French artist Paul-Émile Bécat became widely known precisely for his frivolous illustrations, and if you google his works, you will find far more ticklish scenes

Geography · Art · Maps · Monarchies · Humour

A half-naked lady with a remarkable coiffure sits enthroned upon a sumptuous chariot drawn by two exceedingly large armadillos

A half-naked lady with a remarkable coiffure sits enthroned upon a sumptuous chariot drawn by two exceedingly large armadillos. Why, this is America, of course! One guesses it at the first glance. At any rate, this is the image chosen for that enchanting part of the world by Jean