Greetings from Pioneer Camp, Soviet Russia

Did you hear the one about the Soviet school children who gifted a US Ambassador with a plaque of the United States seal as a gesture of friendship in 1945? It hung in his Moscow office for 7 years before the Americans discovered it was bugged with a listening device. True story. The school children involved in…

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

1. Mystery £50m Gustav Klimt masterpiece found hidden in a wall A Gustav Klimt painting stolen 23 years ago from the Ricci Oddi modern art gallery in Italy might just have been discovered in the unlikeliest of places—inside the walls of the gallery itself. A gardener was recently clearing ivy from the building’s walls, the…

The Oddly Comforting Allure of London’s Vintage Tube Textiles

Fun fact. The woman who revolutionised British print design with some of the most iconic patterns for public transport was in fact a distant cousin of Karl Marx. Her name was Enid Marx, and in 1937 she was selected by the London Passenger Transport Board to design the moquette seat fabrics for the London bus and tube seats. Her…

Here’s the Quirkiest Gift Guide on the Internet

You trust me to take you shopping, right?! Good, because I’ve got something for everyone… For the Pop Culture Junkie Holly Golightly sleep mask. Available from numerous sellers on Etsy and Amazon. Make sure to print out the Breakfast at Tiffany’s photo with it! If you’re good with a needle & thread and have a…

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

1. Cowboy Car Hops, Dallas, Texas, 1940 A woman from Oak Cliff (a Dallas neighborhood) made a complaint that she did not want to look at girls’ legs when she stopped by her local drive-in; she wanted to look at men’s legs. Drive-in owners thought that this was a great idea, and soon the idea of the…

Unearthing a Seriously Awkward Interview with Nick Cave

In 1989, Nick Cave, arguably one of the greatest living lyricists, was passing through Paris with his band, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. The baritone singer-songwriter sat down with a French journalist for over 40 excruciatingly awkward minutes. You have Nick Cave in front of you and you start by asking four questions about…

A Lonely New York Mansion For Sale, Possibly Haunted, Still a Rare Steal

Ten bedrooms, five bathrooms, four fireplaces and 6,000 square feet – the dream fixer-upper for a bargain $50,000. So the question is, exactly how haunted is this house? The James Seymour Mansion was built in 1861 by, you guessed it, James Seymour, a notable philanthropist who had founded the local library and city hospital. Located…

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

1. A Silver-gilt Foot, 1450 Now in the Landes museum in Zurich. This reliquary was made c. 1450 to house a relic of one of the Holy Innocents massacred on the orders of King Herod.⁣ It is rendered as a realistic silver foot wearing a gilded sandal. Although there are some pearls and a real…

We’ll Call her Story a Real-Life “Handmaid’s Tale”

She escaped the Gestapo twice – a glamorous socialite, fashion columnist, pianist and mother of two before the war, she went on to become the only woman to head an underground resistance network against the Nazi Occupation in France. She recruited 3,000 members, 24% of which were women, making it the resistant organisation with the…

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

1. A forgotten 300SL ‘Gullwing’ sitting in a garage in Jacksonville, Florida Entombed in the dark, dusty, and rat-infested garage was a spellbinding 300SL, sitting silently, caked in dust and desperately lifeless, its once-glimmering chrome trim demounted and stored inside the musty cabin. Just the 43rd ‘Gullwing’ to leave the Mercedes-Benz factory in Stuttgart and…