Author: Ms. R.

A “dictionary of the vulgar tongue” may sound like some kind of prank gift, something you pick up as a means of upping the ante on your name-calling or adding some spice to your conversations for all occasions. But you won’t find this dictionary at Spencer’s Gifts. It’s tucked away at the British Library in London, shelved and looking prim and proper in its original 1785 binding. With aged, off-white pages and an unassuming cover, A Classical Dictionary of……

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One of the most prominent buildings in Outer London is the Hoover Building. This Art Deco architectural masterpiece stands between the A40 and the Central Line in Perivale, where it is seen by thousands of commuters every day. Because it is relatively far from the main tourist attractions and businesses in Central London, most tourists and many London residents don’t seek it out. The building was constructed in the early 1930s when the Hoover Company (the vacuum cleaner manufacturer)……

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Some are as large as coconuts while others are as tiny as gooseberries. Some have the pleasant sweetness of cane sugar while others have the sharp tartness of tamarind. Some are bright red, others sport a dull pistachio hue. This is just a glimpse of the biodiversity of mango species found in the tiny village of Kannapuram, located in India’s Kannur district in the southern state of Kerala. The plethora of native mango varieties here is truly mind boggling…….

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When Frank Miranda moved to Florida at the age of 18, he had no clue that ocean driftwood would set the path for his future. As a young boy, Frank played amongst the sawdust-covered floors of his father’s woodworking shop. He observed his father transform raw wood into useful and beautiful items. Young Frank, inspired by his father’s magic, began to construct animals out of the piles of scrap wood. When visitors to the shop began to offer him……

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit New York, to see one member of a fleet of tiny museums that might just have a big impact on the world. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some fascinating people and……

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Before the mobile phone went from briefcase-sized accessory to attention-draining succubus, there was just one way to contact a friend, colleague, or family member while on the go: the payphone. And nowhere else in the United States were payphones packed as densely as in New York City. By 1960, a million of them had been planted like thickets of human connectivity from Wall Street to Staten Island. But improvements in digital technology and the launch of the 3G network……

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The rustic-looking copper tub is filled to the brim with a greenish-yellow liquid, thankfully hidden beneath a milky froth. It’s not brackish water; my outdoor tub is full of whey. I dip my foot gingerly only to yank it out again. It’s scalding. This whey bath is a steamy byproduct of making cheese. It doesn’t take much to make cheese—just a few hundred litres of milk and a sprinkle of precision. When milk, rennet, and cultures are heated to……

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