Observations · Mores · Society
Milan's La Scala opera house has tightened its requirements for the appearance of spectators. Guests in shorts, T-shirts or flip-flops will no longer be admitted to performances, and the price of the ticket will not be refunded. And yet the theatre's director once declared
Books · Observations · Society
Sergey Kazakov, Director of the Industrial Development Fund of the Chelyabinsk Region, declares that the robotisation of industry is being held back by business itself:. "We had a case where a loader robot was installed at one of the enterprises. On the second day it broke down. They began
Books · Society · Humour
Little by little, backward and back, We shall come to such a road That they will drive us all, like calves, Beyond the Ural ridge, little by little. We shall raise ourselves a monument, Higher and fairer than all monuments, And into one colossal Tashkent Our fatherland will be turned
NB! · Science · Society · Nature
The same climatic picture viewed across a gap of 30 years. What was accepted as the norm in 1995 was deemed, in 2024, a heat dangerous to health.
Cinema · Society · People
The Venice Festival was born under Mussolini's warm wing. Its founder, Giuseppe Volpi, a rather successful Italian politician, sat on the Grand Council of Fascism right up to 1943. True, when he spoke out against the alliance with Hitler, he was not merely driven out of every post
London · Observations · Society · Humour
The Bank of England is considering replacing the images of Winston Churchill and other historical figures on its banknotes with other "symbols of national identity". Among those named are Stonehenge, the oak tree, fish and chips and football. Though why stop at fish and chips? Let us go
Moscow · Observations · Society · Paris · Nature · Humour
Extreme heat continues in France. The red alert level has been declared in 16 departments of the country. Since yesterday the top floor of the Eiffel Tower has been closed to visitors because of the high temperature. Abnormal heat is also being recorded in Spain, Portugal, Belgium and the Netherlands.
Faith · The East · Society · Rome
Pope Leo XIV on Netanyahu’s crimes and the complicity of the West
Geography · Monarchies · Society
After 125 years, the Royal Train is being decommissioned as part of the need to cut costs. Not that the British royal family is gradually bidding farewell to its old spendthrift habits; it is simply that the train matters less to Charles than it did to Elizabeth II and Prince
NB! · Cinema · Society · Pop Culture
Society
A Short Memorandum on Russia's Victories in Europe in the 18th and 19th Centuries. In 1710 the Russian army took Riga, then Reval (Tallinn) and Åbo, then the principal city of Finland. In 1719 the Russian fleet landed troops in the suburbs of Stockholm. In 1760 the Russians
Geography · Observations · Society
From the news of the list of the twenty largest economies in the world: Spain is still on it, China has still not overtaken the USA, though for years we have been promised that this is about to happen (the gap, incidentally, is huge), but the gap between second and