NB! · Archive · Books · People · Humour

Virginia I do love a smoke Woolf, photographed by her friend and patroness Lady Ottoline Morrell, for many years the benefactress of the Bloomsbury Group and the lover of Bertrand Russell and Dora Carrington

Engraving of a man kneeling to fit a shoe on a seated lady through a screen marked PATENT and topped with a royal coat of arms.

NB! · Museums · Mores · Humour

Victorian device for shoe fitting that hid everything above the ankle

A Victorian device for the discreet fitting of shoes. The salesman sees only the ankle; he cannot peer up the skirt or meet the lady's eye, and is obliged to gaze at nothing but the royal coat of arms

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

When Everyone Must Urgently Learn What a Well-Read Young Lady You Are

NB! · Faith · Art · Observations · Humour

Quite a splendid helmet on Saint Maurice, I have been looking for one like it for ages

NB! · Observations · Humour

My to You, Gentlemen

Engraving of a young woman in a bonnet standing before a man in a wig reclining on a sofa among many cats.

NB! · Interviews · London · People · Humour

Engraving of Peg Woffington and theatre agent John Rich, who kept 27 cats

The actress Peg Woffington's first interview with the famous eighteenth-century theatrical manager John Rich. Mr Rich is best known for keeping 27 cats, with whom he is depicted in the illustration. Yours truly

NB! · Cinema · Humour

But after that stick wrapped in a rag from the series "Spartacus", the sponge option is sheer luxury

A wooden stick with a sponge at one end lies on a white background beside a small dark coin.

NB! · Archaeology · Mores · Rome · Humour

Stick with a sponge as the Roman method of hygiene instead of toilet paper

This stick with a sponge is all you need to know about the Roman way of wiping oneself. And not a scrap of toilet paper

NB! · Art · Society · Pop Culture · Humour

What to Do When Telegram Is Blocked

What to do when Telegram is blocked. Francisco Goya, 1820, Doctor Arrieta knows how to help

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Armpit hair is rather unusual in sixteenth-century sculpture

Hand-coloured print of a woman in a flower-trimmed straw hat holding a strapped tray of sample shoes, with boots hanging from her skirt.

NB! · Art · Mores · Humour

A Shoe Seller Displaying Sample Wares in an Eighteenth-Century Print

A commonplace sight of the eighteenth century: a shoe-seller with her samples. Little golden slippers, fur-trimmed shoes and lace-ups, boots, mules and hefty brogues. A pair of the slutanskie ones for me, please

NB! · Art · Museums · Humour

Virginia *I do love a smoke* Woolf, photographed by her friend and patroness Lady Ottoline Morrell, for many years the benefactress of the Bloomsbury Group and the lover of Bertrand Russell and Dora Carrington