NB! · Archive · Architecture · Moscow · Observations
It turns out that this luxurious pavilion of Moscow's Arbatskaya metro station, by the architects Polozkov and Zenkevich, still exists; it is merely closed to the gaze of outsiders, standing hemmed in by the General Staff building. Photograph of 1953
Archaeology · Observations · Heritage · Science
Today is a very important day for Russian archaeology, historical science and culture: at long last the petroglyphs of Karelia, thousands of Neolithic rock carvings on the shores of the White Sea and Lake Onega, have been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site, among the most astonishing in the
Observations · People · Humour
Can we agree that the American swimmer and twenty-three-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps, upon receiving his thirteenth gold medal back in 2016, broke the absolute Olympic record of the ancient Greek athlete Leonidas of Rhodes, who over four Olympic Games (164 to 152 BC) emerged the victor twelve
NB! · Observations · Humour
NB! · Observations · Humour
Observations · Science · People
On 25 July 1984 Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman on planet Earth to walk in open space, for 3 hours 34 minutes. The flight itself, in July 1984, lasted 11 days 19 hours 14 minutes 36 seconds. She returned from space with a second Gold Star of a Hero
NB! · Art · Observations · Humour
A winged creature waits for you to open the window with no mosquito net. Hieronymus Bosch
Observations · Palaeontology · Nature · Ethnography
I shall not hold forth at length on Mesoamerican art and Egypt, still less on the views of Elliot Smith. I will say only that there were, of course, elephants in America. And of the most various kinds. If we speak of the family Elephantidae proper, America was widely populated
Interviews · Books · London · Monarchies · Observations · People
Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, photographed by Holly Fernando for The Telegraph. From the interview we learn that she is now the author of 77 books (for children) and has at last written a novel for adults, Heart for a Compass, about the vicissitudes of court life in the Victorian
Faith · Art · Monarchies · Observations · People
Did you recognise her? I could not, without a prompt. The sublimely melancholy young woman in François Flameng's portrait of 1894 is a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, aged thirty, the elder sister of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich: Grand Duchess Elizabeth
Architecture · Observations · Society · Paris · Humour
I would like to send a retching emoji, but I am genuinely impressed by the creative potential of Anne Hidalgo, tireless disfigurer of the French capital. Open-air urinals have been installed on the Place de la République, which prompts the thought that it might be renamed La Répu de
NB! · Observations · Science · Humour