NB! · Observations · Science

Euler diagrams showing which identical letters are shared by the Greek, Latin and Cyrillic alphabets

Three small children in satin outfits of red, silver and blue stand on a carpet beside a golden-brown dog.

NB! · Art · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Children of Charles I by Van Dyck as a model for modern children's clothing

In the West, a movement is under way to do away with gender stereotypes in children's clothing. I suggest taking our bearings from the seventeenth century: van Dyck's portrait of the children of Charles I of England, Princess Mary and the future Charles II and James

NB! · Archive · Observations

Léopold Dubois, 1870

Léopold Dubois, 1870. Learn to take people as they are, or as they wish to be, and not as you would like to see them. It is never too late to begin. Have a good week, friends!

NB! · Books · Monarchies · Observations

I Noticed a Rather Odd Passage in Part II of Shakespeare's Henry IV, Which Seems Even More Preposterous in the Russian Translation

I noticed a rather odd passage in Part II of Shakespeare's Henry IV, which seems even more preposterous in the Russian translation. But even this gibberish has an explanation

Painted dish with a blue pattern: in the centre a fox looks up at a crow on a branch, with bird medallions around the rim.

NB! · Art · Books · Humour

Eighteenth-century dish with Jean de La Fontaine's fable of the crow and the fox

A dish of the eighteenth century. Only this is not the crow and the fox, and Krylov has nothing to do with it: these are Master Raven and Master Fox of Jean de La Fontaine

A green bowl with a white relief of a seated woman and a girl with a jug bending at her feet beneath a drape.

NB! · Art · Mores · Humour

Wedgwood porcelain of 1869 and its popularity in Russia since the time of Catherine the Great

Sorrow is sorrow, but one must still wash one's feet. Wedgwood porcelain, 1869. Catherine II was fond of it, which is how it won its fame in Russia and has kept its popularity 250 years on

NB! · Museums · Paris · Humour

Incidentally, a dollhouse has turned up for Poklonskaya too, in the Museum of Art and History in Saint-Denis

NB! · Science · Palaeontology · Nature

Palaeobiologists Examine the Head of a Pleistocene Horse Found in the Permafrost of the Yana-Indigirka Lowland

NB! · Aristocracy · Monarchies · Pop Culture · Humour

If the child of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen marries the child of Jaime and Cersei Lannister, the result will be Charles II of Habsburg

Three mummified cats wrapped in cloth, displayed on stands in a museum case.

NB! · Archaeology · The East · Nature

1860 discovery in Egypt of a burial of 180,000 mummified cats

In 1860 a burial of 180,000 mummified cats was found in Egypt, many of the mummies with bronze masks. Egyptian animal cemeteries also sometimes yield mummified dogs, monkeys and birds

NB! · Books

But Truth Is Dearer

NB! · Archive · Mores · Humour

A Procession of Elderly Ladies at a Cat's Funeral

A procession of elderly ladies at a cat's funeral. As you can see, the women have brought their own cats, still very much alive, to take leave of the departed. And she is being buried in consecrated ground. Rest in peace