Archive · London · Monarchies · Society

Norman French in the Royal Assent Formula of British Acts of Parliament

I cannot find a good-quality photograph of this act, but the document is very famous. And it begins with the following words: Le Roy le Veult soit baillé aux Seigneurs. A cette Bille avecque des amendemens les Seigneurs sont assentuz. A ces Amendemens les Communes sont assentuz. And no,

London · Observations · Society

Bilingual Royal Mail website and the legal status of Welsh in the United Kingdom

I noticed that the website of Royal Mail, the state post of the United Kingdom, works in two languages, English and Cymraeg, that is, Welsh. One wonders why only two, and why precisely these two? The United Kingdom has, in fact, no constitutionally enshrined state language. The status of English

London · Museums · Heritage · Society

The famous Bayeux Tapestry, created in the eleventh century for Bishop Odo, brother of William the Conqueror, will leave France for an exhibition at the British Museum

Historically, the tapestry (in essence a piece of linen embroidery almost 70 metres long) has been kept in the Norman town of Bayeux as a monument to the Norman conquest of England. The other day a French court permitted the temporary transportation of this fragile relic to Great Britain, despite

Coming Up · Art · London · Museums · New York · Paris

Kahlo, Renoir, Raphael and Duchamp among nine summer exhibitions in London, Paris and New York

If your holiday happens to land you in one of the three art capitals, here are three exhibitions for each, worth carving out half a day for. London 🎨 Frida: The Making of an Icon. Tate Modern, from 22 June. More than 130 works by Frida Kahlo and a separate strand

Art · London · Museums · Paris · People

Le Parc and his light installations, retrospective at Tate Modern on 11 June

The artist Julio Le Parc, a pioneer of the second wave of kinetic art, died in Paris on 30 May at the age of 97. Le Parc worked with light, mirrors, movement and optical effects: suspended mobiles, vibrating light installations, mirrored rooms, environments of projected light that "came to

Coming Up · Art · Books · London

On 8 July Christie's will auction a rarest illuminated manuscript of the early fourteenth century, the Clermont-Tonnerre Grail, containing the first three texts of the Lancelot cycle

The estimate for the book is £1.5–2 million. The manuscript has spent 700 years in private hands, has never been publicly exhibited and has never been studied academically. It is now the earliest of the three privately owned copies of the cycle among the two hundred or so

The East · London · Museums · Society

Museum changes description of Hyksos origin after letter from UK Lawyers for Israel

British Museum Changes Captions Mentioning Palestine. On a panel about the Hyksos people of the 17th–16th centuries BC, the wording Palestinian descent has been replaced with Canaanite descent, and similar amendments have been made in the gallery of Egyptian sculpture. The changes followed a letter from the British lobby

Cinema · London · Society · Nature

Hugh Thomson's film Our Land on public access to land in England and Wales

There is a movement in England called Right to Roam, which concentrates on demanding that people be given back the ability to walk through a wood, a field or along a river without the risk of being accused of trespassing on private property. Hugh Thomson has made a documentary about

Archaeology · London · Science · Humour

Hoaxes from Psalmanazar and Piltdown Man to the Sokal affair and bixonomania

Around 1700, a young man of obscure origins was wandering about Europe. He went through several legends before settling on the most advantageous of them, announcing himself a native of the island of Formosa. Under the name of George Psalmanazar he made his way to London, where he found a

Art · Books · London · Society · People

Ai Weiwei in “On Censorship” on censorship under authoritarianism and in democracies

Ai Weiwei, one of the best-known and most politically inconvenient artists of our time, has published a book about censorship. His father, the poet Ai Qing, cleaned latrines in a labour camp. Ai Weiwei himself was detained in 2011 for 81 days without charge. His studio was demolished, his

NB! · London · Society · Nature · Humour

The Retriever in the British Parliament Has Long Since Understood Everything About Everyone

Coming Up · Archive · London · Paris · People

This is a photograph by Lee Miller, taken during the German bombing of London, which began in September 1940 and continued until May 1941

This is a photograph by Lee Miller, taken during the German bombing of London, which began in September 1940 and continued until May 1941. The Luftwaffe attacked the city for 57 nights in succession. The raids destroyed or damaged more than a million buildings and killed about 43,000 civilians.