Virtually Wander & Weave through an Enchanting Odditorium of Curiosities

It almost feels like you’ve clicked on something you shouldn’t have and suddenly, a door to internet Narnia has opened and you find yourself roaming the aisles of a huge maze of glass cabinets, overflowing with an insane amount of objects. You’ve stumbled into the cabinet of wonder that is the Pitt Rivers Museum. Indefinitely…

Housetrucks: A Traveller’s Answer to Freedom in this Strange New World?

Stay at home. Don’t travel. Social distance. These are the rules we need to abide by in order to get through this surreal pandemic bringing the world to a standstill. But what if your home was on wheels? What if you could safely stay at home while driving through national parks, desert canyons and coastal…

Like Dalí, She Should Have Been a Household Name for Surrealist Art

She became famous overnight with a strange furry teacup that mesmerised the art world in a way that no woman had done before. In a time before shock-seeking art became the norm, Meret Oppenheim was a pioneer; a force of nature who had all the Surrealists of Paris speaking her name, even though she didn’t…

Why Not Tattoo Your Walls like the French?

At this very moment, a drunken Dionysus naps in the doorway of a villa overlooking the French Riviera. In another room, the head of Apollo keeps guard of a marble fireplace, and Diana the Huntress rounds up her nymphs in scenes of cosmic mischief dreamt up by the artist Jean Cocteau, and immortalised – tattooed,…

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

1. An online museum of plastic lost at sea In 1997, nearly 5 million bits of Lego, much of it sea themed, fell into the ocean when a huge wave hit the cargo ship Tokio Express, washing 62 containers overboard. Among the pieces lost were tiny minifig heads, their faces now mostly blank after decades…

Our Zoom Date with a Paris Catacombs Explorer

Welcome to our Q&A with the fabulously entertaining Alexander J.E. Bradley – an artist and urban explorer whose mastery of the Paris catacombs has led us down many a rabbit hole (you may recall our trip to his underground catacombs cinema to watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show one Halloween). If you missed the live…

When the Phallus Was Fashion

A day in the life of Ancient Rome wasn’t a cake walk. If you were going to make a decent life for yourself, you had to be tough. You didn’t wear your heart on your sleeve – you wore a penis fascinus ’round your neck, prayed to the gods, and hoped for the best. A…

The Complicated New World of Voyeurism

The saying is we’re ‘living in strange times’, right? But just how “strange” are we willing to admit we’re becoming too? The nature of the worldwide lockdowns has us all looking out of our windows significantly more, searching for something or someone to uplift, inform or entertain us. As we applaud front liners with our…

Men in Tights and Tutus: The Decadence of the Sun King’s Male Ballets

The cool thing about being royalty, is you get to go all out on your hobbies. Enjoy miniatures? Not as much as Queen Elizabeth II, whose miniatures collection is truly eye-watering. Into beauty and self-care? Not as much as 17th century France’s King Louis XIV, aka the Sun King, who took his baths in a…

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

1. A Human Torpedo, 1967 They were used as secret naval weapons in World War II. The basic concept is still in use. The Italian Navy experimented with a primitive tiny sub carrying two men as 1918 and this craft did have some success. The first truly practical human torpedo was the Italian Maiale (nicknamed the “pig” because…