Here’s a colourful lady who has been the prima donna of velvet-upholstered sitting rooms since 1885: the Tiffany lamp. She was invented by Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933), a painter, designer and decorator who was the son of Charles Tiffany: yup, none other than the founder of the famous jewellery shop where certain young ladies like … Read more
There was no such thing as the Nobel Prize in 1753 and the Copley Medal was one of the most prestigious awards that a gentleman could aspire to. At the time, the British considered anyone born on the other side of the Atlantic not quite on a par with them; hence bestowing the Medal on … Read more
Who knows why nostalgia always puts in an appearance, blushing shyly, when strawberries are mentioned: from Bergman to The Beatles, this fruit is something of a gateway to long-lost childhood. For song-writing John Lennon in particular, “Strawberry Fields” was the garden of an orphanage in Liverpool where he used to go and play: a place … Read more
Oggi parliamo della compagnia aerea con il simbolo dell’arpa che, dal 1922, è anche quello dell’Irlanda. Il motivo per cui questo strumento è così legato all’identità di questa nazione, è da cercare nel fatto che era suonato dal mitico re Brian Boru, vissuto attorno all’Anno Mille. La sua arpa, oggi, si trova al Trinity College (anche se non manca qualche … Read more
The way food has been depicted in images has always mirrored human cravings. Starting, for example, with the late Renaissance paintings of butchers and meats hanging on hooks, as well as of tables laid out for feasts (which were really allusions to memento mori). Nowadays, there’s always a rich panoply of dishes on our mobile … Read more
What colour is chemistry? Anyone who’s seen “Breaking Bad” will reply that it’s blue, rock crystal blue rock. Anyone who’s thinking about the plastic that surrounds us everywhere will say that there’s too much of it and that it’s too colourful. Anyone who’s thinking about burning oil wells will have only black in mind. But … Read more
At the start of each academic year at Athena College, Professor Coleman Silk would explain to his students that “All of European literature springs from a fight.” A quarrel over a woman. Then he would pick up his copy of ‘The Iliad’ and read to the class the opening lines: “Divine Muse, sing of the … Read more
Do you remember Elliott, the little boy in “ET”? Towards the end of the story, he and the eponymous extraterrestrial are being chased by the police and take flight… on board a bicycle… That moment became the film poster’s iconic image. The pram depicted above ideally belongs to a baby who was born two years … Read more
Here’s a record that – luckily – hasn’t yet been broken: that of the longest recorded survival alone on a raft. During World War II, a British merchant ship, SS Benlomond, was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the Atlantic. A young Chinese steward was the only member of the crew to survive: he dived … Read more
An inscription on the façade of a well-known building in Rome proclaims that the Italians are a nation of saints, poets and explorers. Similarly, we find the statues of Vasco da Gama and Bartolomeu Dias standing proud on the Monument of Discoveries in Lisbon. But what about the poets? The category is represented by a … Read more
