NB! · Art · Museums

Hygieia, Goddess of Health, Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), c. 1615, collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts

NB! · Archive · Geography · Ethnography

Trackers on the Yangtze, 1946

NB! · Society · Paris · Humour

The members of the Council of Paris await the next post in Parnassian Mockingbird about the dreadful Mayor Anne Hidalgo

The members of the Council of Paris await the next post in Parnassian Mockingbird about the dreadful Mayor Anne Hidalgo. And so it goes every day, for a mere 4283 euros a month

World map with south at the top and Brazil at the centre, with member countries of BRICS and other groupings shaded in colour.

NB! · Geography · Maps · Observations · Humour

World map with south at the top, published by the Brazilian government

A map of the world according to the government of Brazil. Indeed, why not?

NB! · In the Press · Observations · Science · Humour

Might the journalists of REN TV put their questions about extraterrestrial cities in South America and Tsiolkovsky's acquaintance with the Martians not to me, but to the author of this opus

NB! · Observations · Mores · Humour

Listen, this many days off every month is frankly not serious

NB! · Faith · Observations · Society · Rome · Humour

So the Vatican may escape higher tariffs, now that it has a Pope made in the USA?

NB! · Books · Observations · Humour

The bookshelf after you have bought another two thousand books without yet finishing The Wizard of the Emerald City

NB! · Art

A magnificent five-string lyre harp in walnut, richly carved and surmounted by a dragon, part of a decorative suite of the early nineteenth century

A cutaway drawn plan of the underground home Bag End in Hobbiton, showing the pantry, dining room and hall, signed by Emil Jensen.

NB! · Architecture · Cinema · Humour

Bilbo Baggins's home Bag End in Hobbiton on a plan by Emil Jensen

The Shire? Baggins? Quite some pile Old Bilbo has got himself

Diagram in three rows showing a woman with a black bob draping a rectangular sheet of cloth in three different ways, labelled a, b and c.

NB! · Archaeology · Ethnography · Humour

Three ways to drape a rectangular piece of cloth in ancient Egyptian dress

3 ways to embrace ancient Egyptian fashion with an ordinary bedsheet. Don't mention it

NB! · Faith · Society · People · Rome

Robert Francis Prevost, Now Leo XIV, the First Pope of Mixed Race

Robert Francis Prevost, now Leo XIV, is the first Pope of mixed race. His paternal ancestors were French and Italian; on his mother's side they were French, Spanish, Louisiana Creole, Afro-Haitian and African