NB! · Architecture · London · Moscow · Observations

Would someone please make the Moscow Metro a diagram like the one at London's Piccadilly Circus station!

NB! · Art · Books · Observations · Humour

Every morning I tell myself: one more day, one more chance to labour according to my strength and talents, like the little angel at the bookbinder's press in the engraving from Jean Leclerc's History of the Netherlands of 1728

Close-up of a painting: a bearded man in red leans in and touches with his finger a wound on the bare chest of a bearded figure in white drapery. Dark background, strong side light.

NB!

The Incredulity of Thomas: the apostle touches Christ's wound, painting detail

Spread of an old Soviet book with black-and-white illustrations: a mountain tunnel, the Eiffel Tower, the Mont-Valérien beacon, the Empire State Building and the Magnitogorsk plant.

NB!

Wonders of Engineering: Apennine Tunnel, Eiffel Tower, Skyscraper and Magnitogorsk

Marble stele with a relief of a nude youth playing with a ball, a young servant beside him and a column on the right.

NB! · Archaeology · Art · Museums

Ancient Greek funerary stele of the 5th–4th century BC from Piraeus showing a youth playing with a ball

Funerary stele depicting a naked young man playing with a ball. Beside him stands a boy-servant holding bathing implements. Ancient Greece. 5th-4th centuries BC, Piraeus. National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Light blue porcelain dish with gilded flowers and a hammer and sickle, with a central inscription marking 325 years of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia, 1979.

NB! · Art · Society

Dulevo porcelain dish of 1979 for the 325th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia

Propaganda porcelain plate of 1979: the 325th anniversary of the reunification of Ukraine with Russia. Dulyovo Porcelain Factory

NB! · Books · People

We Can Hardly Hope to Match Brodsky

NB! · Art · People

Félix Vallotton, The White Beach, 1913

NB! · Faith · Art

The Dormition of Saint Mary Magdalene, Silvestro dei Gherarducci, 1380s

A white swan with outspread wings, wrapped in dark iridescent coils, beneath a painted ceiling; a gilded candelabrum and red walls nearby.

NB!

Stuffed swan with spread wings in a hall with a painted ceiling

NB! · London · Monarchies · Pop Culture · Humour

Princess Anne and Her Adidas Sunglasses: An Ageless Alliance

Post-mortem photograph of an elderly man with white hair and beard in an oval frame on a mourning card with a black border.

NB! · Archive · Books · People

Edmond About on Turgenev's service to Russia in his speech at the grave

At Turgenev's graveside, the French writer Edmond François About said: "Your heart belonged to all mankind. But Russia held the first place in your affections. It was Russia you served first and foremost"