Cinema · Observations · Science

Videoton-340 Terminal on Kalugina’s Desk in “Office Romance”, Not an Apple II

Some believe that the machine on Kalugina's desk in "Office Romance" is an Apple II, released in the same year as the film. It is not. For all the considerable resemblance between the two devices, what stands before the director of the statistical office is an

Watercolour costume sketch of a human figure with a radish for a head and a dress of green leaves.

Archive · Art · Observations · Humour

Costume designs for Luigi Manzotti’s ballet “Love” at La Scala, 17 February 1886

Which Fruit or Vegetable Do You Feel Like Today? Costume sketches for the ballet "Amor", presented by Luigi Manzotti at La Scala on 17 February 1886. One would, of course, like to be a salad, but all one manages is a potato

Books · Moscow · Observations · Society · Humour

A flame war is raging around the Mayakovsky Library's post for Yesenin's birthday

A flame war is raging around the Mayakovsky Library's post for Yesenin's birthday. I see a great many angry comments about the supposedly blasphemous treatment of the poet's legacy. What chiefly outraged the public, as I understand it, was the disclaimer "do not

An old olive tree with a thick trunk whose bark shows the outline of a pensive face, on a grassy hill under a cloudy sky.

NB! · Observations · Nature

A 1,500-year-old olive tree in Apulia, known as the Thinking Tree

The celebrated 1,500-year-old olive tree in Apulia is known simply as the Thinking Tree. One glance at that imposing, pensive profile is enough to see why

NB! · Observations

But It Is Not Enough for Me

NB! · Geography · Observations · People

442 years ago Francis Drake completed his circumnavigation of the globe, which I wish for you too

NB! · Archive · Faith · Books · Observations · Education

A Teacher and His Students from the "Summa de potestate ecclesiastica" by the Italian Theologian Augustinus of Ancona

A teacher and his students from the "Summa de potestate ecclesiastica" by the Italian theologian Augustinus of Ancona. Those with a keen eye will have noticed that the tables with benches in this illustration of the fifteenth century bear a suspicious resemblance to the celebrated Erismann desks, invented

The East · Art · Books · Observations

In the ancient Indian collection of moral instruction, the "Panchatantra", there is a tale of a man who, fleeing a mad camel, leaps into a well where a dragon lies in wait; it turns out that the stones on which he might set his foot are guarded by snakes;

The moral of the parable is that the pulse of life is felt precisely at the moment when a man is escaping certain death and discovers beneath him an infernal abyss, when every element of existence undermines the footing beneath his feet, and the time by which he might cling

London · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Buckingham Palace unveils King Charles III's new cypher for documents and postboxes

Buckingham Palace has unveiled King Charles III's new cypher, "CIIIR", which will gradually appear on documents, government buildings, signs and pillar boxes. Tell me, am I the only one who looks at this cypher and thinks of Richard III rather than Charles? R is the first

NB! · Cinema · Observations

One of the Best-Loved Shots in World Cinema

Archive · Books · Observations · People

John Keats describes the taste of a nectarine in a diary entry of 22 September 1819

On 22 September 1819, the English Romantic poet John Keats wrote in his journal: "Talking of pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my mouth a nectarine — good God how fine! It went down soft, pulpy, slushy, oozy — all its delicious