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Cocaine-laced Mariani wine and the Vatican gold medal from Pope Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIII on an advertising poster for Vin Mariani. Vin Mariani was nothing other than a wine tonic laced with cocaine, which became extraordinarily popular in the 1870s. According to the recipe, every 100 grams of the drink, made from Bordeaux wine, contained 25 mg of cocaine. The makers

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Short Aspin down jacket in buttercup yellow and antique sculptures in the windows of the Moncler boutique in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, Milan

NB! · Aristocracy · Monarchies · Pop Culture

Queen Paola of Belgium in a matchless Chanel jacket with her first-born, now King Philippe of the Belgians, who turned 62 today

Faith · People · Pop Culture · Humour

Pope Francis's Patek Philippe gift turned out to be an April Fools' joke

Pope Francis was recently photographed in a Patek Philippe Tiffany Blue, just like Leonardo DiCaprio's. The watch, issued to mark 170 years of collaboration between Tiffany and Patek Philippe, was, so the legend went, a gift to the Pontiff from the watch house; in the end it turned

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Ingrid Bergman with her twin daughters, Isotta and Isabella Rossellini

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How Do You Like Christopher Walken as an Orthodox Hermit?

Cinema · Books · Observations · Science · Pop Culture

Do you remember how Frodo lit up Shelob's lair with the light of distant Eärendil, drawing out the elven phial given to him by Galadriel, with the light of the far-off Evening Star trapped inside it, pointing the way to the shores of the Undying Lands?

Do you remember how Frodo lit up Shelob's lair with the light of distant Eärendil, drawing out the elven phial given to him by Galadriel, with the light of the far-off Evening Star trapped inside it, pointing the way to the shores of the Undying Lands? It

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Sophia Loren at Armani's pre-Oscars party yesterday with Roberta Armani, the brand's director of VIP client communications

Sophia Loren at Armani's pre-Oscars party yesterday with Roberta Armani, the brand's director of VIP client communications. Sophia is still a beauty at 87🥰

Art · Observations · Paris · Pop Culture

Anniversary Smiley by André Saraiva in the atrium of Galeries Lafayette in Paris

For a month now, a giant smiley has hung in the atrium of Galeries Lafayette to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the yellow grinning mug. Not only in Paris, by the way, but in Beijing and Shanghai too. Though one must admit that a half-century slapped across the eyes

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It is now twenty days since Yandex Zen switched off its recommendation feed, that is, the main system on which the service was built and to which everyone had grown accustomed

It is now twenty days since Yandex Zen switched off its recommendation feed, that is, the main system on which the service was built and to which everyone had grown accustomed. I still cannot grasp the point of a Zen without algorithms. It is as if TikTok were suddenly to

Archive · Monarchies · Pop Culture · Humour

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Charles, photograph by Cecil Beaton, 1948, Vogue

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Charles, photograph by Cecil Beaton, 1948, Vogue. Although the child here is only a month old, there is no tiger-cub emoji on his face. Besides being the first published photograph of Prince Charles in the magazine, it is the first royal photograph printed in the

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