NB! · Observations · Nature · Humour

Marsupial joeys make their way to a meal along a path licked clear by their mother: in the wild, it's all just like show business

NB! · Books · Observations

And Brodsky was simply reproducing a commonplace piece of Victorian wisdom

NB! · Art · Madrid · Museums · Observations

As a movement, Impressionism arose at the end of the nineteenth century, but one need only look at the spinning wheel in Velázquez's Las Hilanderas, painted around 1657, to see an example of liberation from pure geometrical form already in seventeenth-cen

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

The American electric toaster of 1929 seems to ask at what point industrial design took a wrong turning

NB! · Monarchies · Observations · People

When I think of Elizabeth II, I picture not a granny in pastel-coloured hats, but a resolute queen in military uniform on horseback at a parade in 1981

When I think of Elizabeth II, I picture not a granny in pastel-coloured hats, but a resolute queen in military uniform on horseback at a parade in 1981. Incidentally, she rides side-saddle

NB! · Faith · Art · Moscow · Observations

Look What a Charming Jesus!

Look what a charming Jesus! My new favourite piece of street art in Moscow, at 6 Tverskaya. By Pixelboy 💟

Geography · Observations · Nature

Malkhan Range tourmalines of Transbaikalia as an alternative to paraiba tourmaline

To all jewellers and admirers of luxe-class gems who have been charmed by the fashion for the extravagantly praised Paraiba tourmaline, priced above diamonds: I recommend a closer look at the home-grown tourmalines of the Malkhan Range. The legendary deposit in Transbaikalia is an inexhaustible source of this

NB! · London · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour

Only just spotted this epic 2000s telly at the Queen's Windsor Castle, complete with oval side table, which every granny ought to have at home

Only just spotted this epic 2000s telly at the Queen's Windsor Castle, complete with oval side table, which every granny ought to have at home. Yesss👌🏽

Engraving of a man in a cap seated in an armchair, with a skull-bodied spider at his feet, a cat and a book titled “Diary of Health” nearby.

Art · Observations · Humour

Illustration “The Hypochondriac” by Richard Dagley, created in 1827

The Hypochondriac. Does anyone recognise themselves? Illustration by Richard Dagley, 1827

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

One of Paul Ramsey's best-known works expresses exactly how I see people who can, at the drop of a hat, hold forth on your star sign, your natal chart, your ascendant and all the rest of it

Faith · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Photo of Pope Francis dealing with a fault in his old Fiat

Just add holy water! This photograph might serve as the finest allegory of the pontificate of Francis I: His Holiness, in person, attempting to get to the bottom of a fault in his elderly Fiat. Should anyone entertain doubts, apart from the Roman Pontiff the same white habit is worn

NB! · London · Monarchies · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour