Observations · Pop Culture · Humour

I swear I had never heard the word VVIP, but such things do happen now

Very-very important persons I am sure that many would be prepared to pay a serious sum for such a designation

Museums · Observations · Heritage · Humour

Coins from a hoard found in 2011 stolen from the Diderot museum in Langres

I can hardly believe my eyes, but France has suffered yet another high-profile museum robbery. It would seem that the criminal world has announced some sort of tour of the cultural heritage. Right after the Louvre, on Monday, the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot in Langres, Haute-Marne, was

NB! · Museums · Observations · Paris · Humour

Doing the one thing forbidden on the premises of the Louvre

Museums · Observations · Heritage · Paris · Humour

It turns out that the rococo-style display cases for the royal jewels installed in the Galerie d'Apollon at the Louvre until 2019 were fitted with armoured glass, and that if the integrity of the outer casing was breached, their contents would automatical

It turns out that the rococo-style display cases for the royal jewels installed in the Galerie d'Apollon at the Louvre until 2019 were fitted with armoured glass, and that if the integrity of the outer casing was breached, their contents would automatically drop into a safe. The

Observations · Nature · Humour

Hannibal's War Elephants in the Crossing of the Alps, Their Supply, Losses and Role

Pity the Poor Beasts, Eh! Hannibal took some 37 war elephants with him across the Alps. Roughly as many as it takes to fill the runway at a Marina Rinaldi show. The elephants were most probably of the North African subspecies. An elephant requires an enormous quantity of fodder, some

Architecture · Observations · Society · Paris

Graffiti on Paris buildings, the cost of removing it and the question of fines

Graffiti in Paris has climbed far above the ground floors, and it is becoming a real calamity. All the more so given what it costs to paint it over or wash it off. And it spoils the view considerably. But perhaps, if one were to fine people for daubing residential

Architecture · Observations · Heritage · Society

Watching Trump demolish part of the White House to build a vast ballroom of some 8,000 square metres, I think that America is approaching a perfect balance of the outer and the inner, a complete accord of form and idea

Watching Trump demolish part of the White House to build a vast ballroom of some 8,000 square metres, I think that America is approaching a perfect balance of the outer and the inner, a complete accord of form and idea. But the age of plenty is drawing to a

NB! · Art · Observations · Humour

Or, as the critics put it, the work turns to the theme of the authenticity of the gesture and the contingency of form, the artist calls into question the boundaries between creator and observer, a subversion of the academic tradition

Observations · Society · Humour

Emmanuel Macron among France's peacetime rulers, from Grévy to Hollande

The Macron Years in Two Pictures. It has been worse: in the Hundred Years' War, during the Wars of Religion, under the Jacobin Terror, in the First World War and under German occupation. But for peacetime, Emmanuel Macron is undoubtedly one of the worst rulers of France. Off the

NB! · Observations · Humour

What Is the Name of the Mental State That Makes People Think Others Will Change Their Minds if Shown Weighty Arguments Backed by Exhaustive Facts and Data?

Coming Up · Art · Museums · Observations · Saint Petersburg

At times it seems to me that museums of classical art are temples not so much of beauty as of discipline, intellectual discipline included, naturally

At times it seems to me that museums of classical art are temples not so much of beauty as of discipline, intellectual discipline included, naturally. We often go there not for inspiration but for confirmation that our world can still be explained, at least a little. And yet, after dozens

Art · Museums · Observations · Paris · Society Pages

Yesterday I attended the opening of the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton

Yesterday I attended the opening of the Gerhard Richter retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Believe me, taking in all the splendour Richter has created is harder than reading this text. Given that some call the 93-year-old Richter the greatest artist of our time, the exhibition is indeed