Black and white photograph of a line of schoolboys waiting while a woman in a white coat gives one of them a spoonful from a bottle.

Archive · Observations · Mores · Education

French schoolchildren queuing for fish oil in a 1948 photograph by Robert Doisneau

French schoolchildren waiting for their weekly dose of cod liver oil, 1948. Photo by Robert Doisneau. I honestly don't know whether I have a genuine memory of being given cod liver oil at nursery school too, or whether it is a memory slot imported from my parents'

An elderly man in glasses with a cane and a white-haired woman in a black fur coat walk hand in hand over cobblestones.

NB! · Monarchies · Mores

Former King Albert II of Belgium and Queen Paola, married since 1959

The now non-reigning King of the Belgians, Albert II, aged 90, and his wife Queen Paola, aged 87. Married since 1959. Delightful 💞

Archive · Books · Mores · People

Maria Bashkirtseva’s 1876 diary entry on how her father and others treat her

I can only admire myself: people yield to me, flatter me and, what is more important, love me. Father, who at first wished to cast me down from the throne, has now almost fully understood why I am shown royal honours, and, despite a certain hardness of character, shows them

A shop hall with a stucco ceiling, chandeliers, arches, freezer cases and shoppers among shelves of goods.

Architecture · Moscow · Observations · Mores · Humour

Grocery store in the basement level of the high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment

On the whole, Pyaterochka fits rather well into the interiors of a palace of late socialism. The grocery shop on the lower ground floor of the high-rise on Kotelnicheskaya Embankment

NB! · Architecture · Heritage · Mores · People

The Salad-Green Sitting Room of Virginia and Leonard Woolf in Their Seventeenth-Century Home, Monk's House, East Sussex

Mores

Chess for four players was known as early as the Middle Ages, but the board in this miniature differs from the boards of modern German four-handed chess, where three rows of squares are added on each side, and from historical Russian four-handed chess wit

Modern rules provide for a game between two teams: the players of one team sit opposite each other and move clockwise, beginning with White.

Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · People

Besides the headlines with their droll puns, heirbnb and scarebnb, there is the recent piece in The Sun about the purchase of new property in Portugal by Prince Harry and his in every respect charming American wife, Markle, presumably to let out…

The money comes, remarkably enough, as an inheritance from his great-grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, née Bowes-Lyon. Here is how it came about. The Queen Mother, matriarch of the British monarchy, died in 2002, a very short time before her 102nd birthday. So why was her legacy

Archive · Monarchies · Mores

Alexander III with his children watering trees in the garden

Late 1880s.

Archive · Observations · Mores · Pop Culture

Wedding of Madge Elliott and Cyril Ritchard in 1935 and possibly the longest bridal veil

Stumbled upon this photograph by chance and may have found the longest wedding veil in history; its owner was the British-born Australian dancer and actress Madge Elliott. In September 1935 Madge married the Australian actor Cyril Ritchard. The dress and veil were created by the English couturier Peter Russell.

Art · Mores · People

Camille Claudel's sculpture “The Mature Age” and her break with Rodin

Camille Claudel's sculpture "The Mature Age" of 1899. The second photograph shows the original version of this work, dating from 1894. The artist's brother, Paul Claudel, described the piece thus: "My sister Camille, imploring, humiliated, on her knees, this superb, this proud woman,

Page 75 of an old Russian book in pre-reform spelling, describing a booklet of virtues ruled with red ink.

Observations · Mores · Humour

A table of virtues for daily self-examination following Pythagoras

No Life Coach Will Ever Teach You This. Draw up a table of virtues, and whenever you commit an offence against any one of them, put a little mark in the appropriate column. The moment you complete a bingo card, congratulations: you have lost

A pale two-handled pot with floral garlands, with a figure of Napoleon in a blue uniform with a yellow collar inside.

Art · Observations · Mores · Humour

English chamber pot with a figure of Napoleon inside, early 19th century

Chamber pot with a figure of Napoleon. 1803-05, England. Can you imagine how afraid the English were of this man?