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Category / How to start a subculture

Two Girls Who Tricked the World: The Case of the Cottingley Fairies

One Saturday afternoon in July 1917, Elsie Wright borrowed her father’s camera and set off with her cousin, returning half an hour later claiming to have photographed a group of fairies they played with in the wood. Elsie, aged 16, and her 9-year-old cousin Frances Griffiths, claimed the magical creatures lived in the woods around the…

The Real Princess Leia

Could it be that Princess Leia hails from an ancient Native American tribe called the Hopi, short for Hopituh Shi-nu-mu, meaning, “The Peaceful Little Ones”? Hollywood didn’t give them much credit for one of cinema’s most iconic hairstyles, so in the interest of learning and being curious, let’s put the spotlight on these real-life Princess Leia(s)… According to George…

One of the World’s Most Beautiful Castles is also a School for Wizards

I‘m not really sure where to start with Mozna Castle. The middle of old nowhere would probably be quite accurate, but to be more specific, this Baroque behemoth lies in old Bohemia, otherwise known as Upper Silesia, Poland. The castle has 365 rooms and 99 spires. Its historical records only date back to the 17th century but excavations in…

So in Japan, Their Public Toilets are Actually Worth Documenting

Japanese people are known to be fanatical about cleanliness and take their lavatories very seriously. A Tokyo-based publisher produced a guide book to the best rest rooms in the city, and there’s even an annual award for “Toilet of the year”, awarded by the ministry of land, infrastructure and transportation. One very unique instagram account, called…

French No Man’s Land looking Suspiciously Like a Wes Anderson Film Set

Staring out of the passenger seat window on car journeys through France, I’ve always found the roadscape of highways strangely alluring ever since I was a small child. What lives at the side of the road in a no man’s land of concrete and abandon are often ignored and very rarely the subject of artistic…

The Town with a Subculture of Secret Tiny Doors

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, a series of what is known as ‘fairy doors’, began popping up around the area in 2005, built into buildings, shops and restaurants and quickly acquired a cult following. Father and children’s book author, Jonathan B. Wright, believed to be behind the installation of the whimsical tiny portals, is kind of…

Morse Code Mine Dancing: A Language Born in the Darkness

Born in the darkness of South African gold mines during Apartheid, “gumboot dancing” sprung from the basic need for exploited miners to communicate in what was a harrowing environment, where they were forbidden to even speak to one another. Workers decided to let their boots do the talking for them, and developed a kind of “morse…

Oh, to Have Ridden England’s Forgotten Post Bus

I never knew the post bus existed. I grew up in England’s capital, but never in my 25 years of living there did I ever see or hear of these delightful red buses that both delivered mail and served as the only public transport in some of the UK’s most remote areas. Then again, until the…

The Floating Basket Homes of Iraq: A Paradise Almost Lost to Saddam

It was Iraq’s ‘Garden of Eden’; unique wetlands in southern Iraq where a people known as the Ma’dan, or ‘Arabs of the marsh’, lived in a Mesopotamian Venice, characterised by beautifully elaborate floating houses made entirely of reeds harvested from the open water. These little-known architectural wonders are known as a ‘mudhif’; built without nails, wood or glass…

The 1960s Pucci Air Hostess Uniforms, Ideal for Mile High “Stripping”

I was doing my daily browse through Pinterest and came across this eye-popping photograph of two ladies wrapped around the staircase of an airplane cabin, unmistakably decked out in head to toe Pucci prints. By now we’re probably all aware that mid-century air travel was the bee’s knees, but surely, no airline ever actually dressed their…

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