Dream Home du Jour: Live like a Victorian Shopkeeper

A charming slice of London history in the heart of Spitalfields Market has recently hit the market and stolen our hearts. The three-bedroom property includes a Grade II-listed shop on the ground floor, which retains the original Victorian signage, advertising the services of a milliner by the name of A. Gold, which operated at 42…

Who Remembers the “Studio 54” of Texas?

Coming of age in Dallas in the 1980s was synonymous with two words: Starck Club. The notorious nightclub brought scandal to the bible belt with an injection of European excess at the hands of a then-unknown French designer named Philippe Starck. In an abandoned concrete warehouse in the old part of town, past some forgotten…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXXVIII)

1. Just a a “dombra” performance in Lake Köbeituz, Kazakhstan View this post on Instagram A post shared by fancy nothing (@fancy_nothing) on Jul 31, 2020 at 7:09am PDT The musician is 23-year-old Marzhan Kapsamat. Lake Köbeituz is a salt lake that turns pink every several years. The dombra, also known as dombyra is a long-necked…

Who wants to Live in this Old Café in Paris?

At the foot of Montmartre, a Parisian café, or at least the ghost of one, has recently found its way onto the property market. Dating back to 1902, locals haven’t been able to get their caffeine fix here for a few decades, but the cheerful facade is still marked by old-world lettering on the windows,…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXXVII)

1. The Victorian “Two Penny Hangover”: How the term “hungover” originated At one of the first homeless shelters in London, for two pennies a night people could sleep resting over a rope (they were forbidden from lying down). It was called the “two-penny-hangover” and it may likely be where the term “hungover” originates from. Full…

A Peculiar Ghost is Haunting Europe’s Abandoned Castles

France has over 30,000 castles, and sadly a large number of them are abandoned or at risk. But let’s meet the peculiar ghost on a quest to haunt them through his lens… French photographer and explorer, Jim Carroll, who also goes by the pseudonym “A Peculiar Ghost”, is one of our favourite follows on Instagram. There’s…

Magical & Macabre Spell Ingredients to throw in your Cauldron this Halloween

We’re looking for a most powerful spell this year. Forget the “eye of newt” and “wool of bat” – to get in the spirit of Halloween, we’ve trawled our favourite curio corners of the net to find some alternative oddities to get our cauldrons a’ bubbling this year. In the tradition of rare and macabre…

13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DXXVI)

Welcome to your Halloween edition of 13 Things, not for the faint of heart! 1. The French Werewolf Endemic .. A 67-page academic paper on the history of killer lycanthropes or some sort of man-eating wolf exists. The French Werewolf Epidemic (1520-1630) was France’s version of Europe’s witch trials and executions, but with werewolves. For 110 years,…

The Buried African Folklore behind the Pop Culture Zombie

There is a law still in effect in the Haitian criminal code that dates back to 1883, making it illegal to try to turn someone into a zombie. The word “zombie” in fact, comes from “nzambi,” a word that means “spirit” in the voodou religions of Haiti and the African diaspora, but the Haitian zombie…

Making a Miniature World for Marie Antoinette

Let them eat tiny cakes! Just when you think the world of miniatures couldn’t get any more impressive, you stumble upon the exquisite work of June Clinkscales. The Californian miniature artist has the kind of artisanal skills that we might have believed were almost lost to the world – not to mention, she’s working on…