Weekend Conversation Starters

[Messy Nessy Chic]   Make yourself at home. When the internet feels like an unsafe and noisy space, you know you’re always welcome here… Fix yourself a drink, maybe tea, [maybe something stronger](, and settle in with some noise-cancelling stories. We’ll tell you about that time they [partied on the frozen Thames during the Little Ice Age]( or when [Montmartre was Harlem-on-the-Seine](. As the fire crackles, we’ll share some travel stories too … I’ll lament about the [lost romance of a Romanian spa town]( or the [forgotten glamour of vacationing in Vittel](. But seriously, what is it with me and [spa towns](?  Join me in the kitchen while I fix us some dinner and let’s reminisce over [the camp culinary adventures of TV’s first celebrity chef](. Come out to the barn and we’ll tinker in the workshop with the [Boy Robot of 1774](. But it’s okay to just zone out chez MessyNessy too! Take a look through my pick of the [craziest Zillow listings]( on the market right now. Wishing you a perfect Autumn weekend. Stay curious, [Nessy]   [London’s Frosty, Forgotten Tradition of Partying on the Frozen Thames](  [16_The_Frost_Fair-scaled-930x725]( Daily life could be grim in early modern London. Plague and other diseases seemed to lurk in the shadows. Education was out of reach for most. And the contents–or lack thereof–of your dinner table relied almost entirely on forces of nature beyond your control and which were running amok in a period of global cooling…  [Continue Reading](   [The Boy Robot of 1774](  [16_The_Frost_Fair-scaled-930x725]( It’s hard to imagine that before the United States of America even became a country, a Swiss watchmaker had already created a machine with the capabilities of a modern programmable computer– in the form of a small boy. The 70cm-tall automaton known as “The Writer”, is an extraordinary but often forgotten anomaly of its age. So impossibly ahead of its time, even the creator, Pierre Jaquet-Droz…  [Continue Reading](   [The Camp Culinary Adventures of TV’s First Celebrity Chef](  [16_The_Frost_Fair-scaled-930x725]( You can’t beat a bit of Fanny, especially in the kitchen. Overshadowed by modern day macho MasterChefs, Fanny Cradock paved the way as the first ever celebrity chef and remains one in a million, like a dish you can perfect just once and never recreate. Spicing up British TV from the mid-1950s-70s, folks tuned in with dark fascination at her questionable culinary creations, sharp tongue, and flamboyant style…  [Continue Reading](   [The Remains of Maryland-In-Africa](  [Tubman_Center_of_African_Culture_Robertsport_Liberia_03]( The ruins of Harper, Liberia are as beautiful as they are complicated… In 1833, a group of 2,769 formerly enslaved and and freeborn African Americans settled in the town of Harper on the west coast of Africa. They were part of a new colony called Maryland-in-Africa that sought to “repatriate” free Black Americans throughout the…  [Continue Reading](   [Zillow Gone Wild: The Craziest Listings on the Market Right Now](  [FYIbo-mXoAAYZZt]( This is more of an appreciation post for the Twitter account “Zillow Gone Wild” than anything else. There is arguably nothing I enjoy more than perusing the insane properties while eating my lunch, from gaudy McMansions to mind-boggling “wait … you can buy that thing?” listings. Step right this way and enter the twilight zone…  [Continue Reading](   [13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. DCXXI)](  [269340028_390284959558079_1904101254734265442_n]( [Continue Reading](  Interested in Becoming a MessyNessy Keyholder? [Apply now to unlock the Vault!](    [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn]( [Blog]( [To read more from MessyNessyChic visit the Blog]( and make sure you keep getting these email by adding contact@messynessychic.com to your address book or whitelist us. Our postal address: In a Café, Paris 75001 Want out of the loop? [Unsubscribe](.