NB! · Books · People · Humour

When it was put to Chesterton that he was not especially gallant, the writer objected: in fact, only this morning on the bus I stood up to give my seat to three ladies at once

Old sepia photograph of a bearded man sleeping in bed with his head on a pillow before a striped wall.

NB! · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Claude Debussy asleep in an old photograph for his birthday

Claude Debussy is still asleep: he has second period today. It is his birthday, after all

Monarchies · Observations · People

Edward VIII's remarks about his mother Mary of Teck and sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Do you know what was the most loathsome thing about Edward VIII? Not even his abdication, nor his total obsession with Wallis Simpson, but the fact that he called his grieving mother, the Dowager Queen Mary of Teck, and his sister-in-law Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ice-cold bitches. Such

NB! · Archive · Moscow · Observations · People

When I want to think of something pleasant, I remember pancakes, or photographs of Sophia Loren in Moscow

Archive · Moscow · Mores · Society · People

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya on childhood in the Second House of Soviets and the Veger family's fate

“I am an old Muscovite and from birth I lived in the Metropol. In the Second House of Soviets. Where lived those members of the Comintern who had fled arrest in their own countries, and who by the time of my birth had already been shot or were serving their

Ochre house facade with green shutters and a marble plaque recording Napoleon's birth on 15 August 1769, seen from below.

NB! · Architecture · Museums · People

Facade of the house in Ajaccio, Corsica, where Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769

The house in which Napoleon was born on 15 August 1769. Ajaccio, Corsica

Art · Museums · Paris · People

Gustave Caillebotte retrospective in Martigny and his painting “The Europe Bridge”

The Fondation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland, is currently staging a retrospective of the undeservedly neglected Impressionist Gustave Caillebotte. At the very least, he may be remembered for his painting "The Floor Scrapers", with its men planing a parquet floor while sitting on the floor of a large

Archive · Art · People · Humour

Frida Kahlo in the 1933 press as Diego Rivera's wife and amateur artist

The muralist's wife amuses herself with works of art. Can you imagine that this might have been written about Frida Kahlo? An unexpected mention of Frida in the press of 1933, in the column "Visiting Interesting People", and visiting not her at all, but her husband,

Archive · Mores · New York · People

Big Edie and Little Edie, Queens of Self-Isolation, 1975

Retired society divas Edith Ewing Bouvier Beale and her daughter Edith Bouvier Beale at their estate, Grey Gardens, where they lived in complete seclusion for many years

Aristocracy · Art · Observations · Paris · People · Pop Culture

Castelbajac graffiti on rue des Beaux-Arts in Paris still intact six months on

Does anyone still remember the Marquis Jean Michel de Castelbajac? A designer from the distant past, who dressed Madonna in a coat of teddy bears and was famed for his rainbow palette and witty solutions, once even earning the title of France's king of kitsch, and who befriended

Cinema · Science · Society · People

A short article on the Russian prodigy and young genius Pasha Konoplev: how at four he solved complex school problems, at six scored 142 on an IQ test, at seven mastered logarithms and musical notation, at eight appeared in Solaris, and…

A short article on the Russian prodigy and young genius Pasha Konoplev: how at four he solved complex school problems, at six scored 142 on an IQ test, at seven mastered logarithms and musical notation, at eight appeared in Solaris, and at ten published "A Study of the Variables

NB! · Art · People