Art · London · Observations · Nature · Humour
Trump the pug, dog of William Hogarth. The finest Trump I have ever had occasion to see. Incidentally, how different the pugs of the eighteenth century were from their modern descendants: their legs were longer and their bodies slimmer. And wigs suited them far better, too.
Architecture · London · Science · Education
Contrary to rumour, Isaac Newton has nothing to do with these moon dials at Queens' College. The curious panel appeared on a Cambridge wall in 1743, and to tell the time from it one did indeed need a university education. That is precisely why moon dials never became as
Architecture · London · Mores · Society
On 24 July 1851 Britain abolished the window tax, introduced in 1696. In the intervening years the tax was raised more than once, and it led to houses being built with no windows at all. The tax was levied not on each window but on the total number of windows
Books · London · Heritage · Education · Society
Not long ago a plaque was put up in Oxford to commemorate those who worked in slave conditions on the Codrington plantations in the West Indies. It is the work of a group that seeks to publicise Oxford's colonial past. In 2017 its activists demanded that the statues
Books · London · Mores · Society
British historian Hallie Rubenhold has published a book on the anatomy of Jack the Ripper's crimes, 'The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper'. The work is of interest not only from the standpoint of criminology, but also as an anthropological
Archaeology · London · Museums
- limestone - inlaid - with glass pupils - from the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology
Faith · Books · London · Mores · Ethnography
Yes, he has fallen asleep In the last, eternal, unwaking sleep. I shall make a coffin his bed, Fairies will gather at his grave And no worm will dare creep into it. Literal translation Indeed, in ancient Britain there was a belief that fairies take particular care of young corpses
Art · London · Museums · Observations · Science · Humour
To everyone who fears dentists as much as I do, or perhaps even more, I recommend pondering the simple subject of this sculpture of 1601 from the storerooms of the Science Museum in London. In those days the extraction of teeth was an exceedingly painful operation, conducted almost without anaesthetic:
London · Museums · Observations · Ethnography · Humour
I don't wish to make diagnoses, but what if Andrey Trubnikov, founder of Natura Siberica, who always wears a toad around his neck, took his inspiration from the old English custom of making an amulet from a dried toad to ward off fits? True, in England the toad&
NB! · Archaeology · London · Museums
Aristocracy · London · Monarchies · Mores · People
Catherine, younger sister of the nine-day queen Jane Grey, paid with her liberty for marrying without Elizabeth's leave: the Virgin Queen took the marriage of a maiden of the Tudor line for an attempted coup. All the more so since Catherine Grey had, in Elizabeth's
London · Monarchies · Science · People
Could Syphilis Have Been the Cause of Henry VIII's Foul Temper? By the age of fifty Henry VIII was almost immobile, though legends were still told of his former prowess and might. Standing 186 centimetres tall, by the end of his life the king weighed 180 kilograms and