Monarchies · Observations · Society · People · Pop Culture

Meghan Markle announces a second child after last year's court action over privacy

Meghan Markle has announced that she is expecting a second child. Only last year she turned to the courts for protection of her private life from journalists. Yesterday's news, in all likelihood, illustrates not merely a wish to publish personal stories and news on her own terms, but,

Archive · Geography · Maps · Observations · Rome

Map of Rome from a Ptolemy codex of the late 15th century with the Colosseum and Pantheon

In my view, the best kind of map. Fidelity of scale and distance is of no real consequence for finding one's way anyway, nor are superfluous features, which distract the eye from what truly deserves to be marked on a map. A view of Rome from a codex

NB! · Archive · Observations · Humour

With this photograph I would like to inform everyone else who has been snowed under by blizzards and battered by frosts that in February 1957 there was considerably more snow

Observations · Mores · People · Humour

Ralph Lincoln and his kinship with Abraham Lincoln through Mordecai Lincoln

Ralph Lincoln likes to stress his resemblance to Abraham Lincoln and even wears an old-fashioned suit and a top hat in the manner of the famous Lincolnian image. A public figure and speaker on American history, above all on the biography of the 16th President of the United States,

Books · Observations · Humour

A short remark of approval addressed to the English

The first edition of the academic dictionary of 1735 indicated that, under the word "Angliya" (England), the words "anglinsky" and "aglichanin" were the norm. Well, it doesn't sound bad, DEAR AGLICHANE!

Cinema · Monarchies · Observations · People

Queen Victoria's sense of humour and sharp mind, and Nina Usatova as a possible Victoria

Queen Victoria is usually presented as a squeamish prude and a lady of sorrow, but she had a wonderful sense of humour and a very sharp mind, and a smile, glimpsed in a few rare photographs, that could lift the spirits. I should like to see Nina Usatova, for example,

Archive · Monarchies · Observations · Humour

Snowmen in the likeness of Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, her daughter Juliana, and Juliana's dog Mannie in a muzzle

Beside the figures stand the proud creators of this masterpiece in snow. I would say that in execution this sculptural group is no whit inferior to the monument to Her Majesty Queen Wilhelmina in The Hague, or to the one by the church at Apeldoorn that she founded. I adore

NB! · Observations · Society · People

A reminder: by the racial reckoning of the nineteenth century, Pushkin counts as an octoroon, that is, the possessor of one-eighth African blood

NB! · Moscow · Observations · Nature

In Moscow an unheard-of cold snap by the standards of our times, in Versailles, fogs

Monarchies · Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

Royal Air Force brooch received by the Duchess of Cambridge in 2015

I noticed the RAF brooch that Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge wears with her blue outfits. Unlike many of her other jewels, which came to her from the Queen's collection, this one is a gift from the Royal Air Force, the RAF, and not from Raf Simons)) In 2015

Moscow · Observations · Society Pages

I had only two photos from "Batman vs Brezhnev" at the Teatr na Bronnoy in my stories (yes, yes, I never break the rules and do not film during a performance), but even that was enough to bring a barrage of questions: a Batman projection on the stage curt

I had only two photos from "Batman vs Brezhnev" at the Teatr na Bronnoy in my stories (yes, yes, I never break the rules and do not film during a performance), but even that was enough to bring a barrage of questions: a Batman projection on the stage

NB! · Art · Museums · Observations · Society Pages

Last week I visited the exhibition of the Ball and Cross, which became a sensation during the pandemic, by your old acquaintance Max Boxer at the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts

Last week I visited the exhibition of the Ball and Cross, which became a sensation during the pandemic, by your old acquaintance Max Boxer at the Museum of Decorative and Applied Arts. And do you know, Boxer is still the best at what he does. A splendid collection of young