Bits & Pieces of Zen: New Year's Eve

Passed very quietly indeed; I didn't much feel like going out to a friend's party in the evening, so stayed in, watched the countdown and the very impressive looking South Bank fireworks on telly, had a Sex and the City marathon, and felt rather pleased and not at all sorry for myself -- more proof, if I needed any, that I have definitely arrived out the other end of that social insecurity that seems to hit all who move overseas for university. Woo, 2007, and all that. I've never been much of a one for New Year's, probably because my family never really "did" New Year, and also after last year's Times Square insanity I almost feel like I've been there etc.! Nevertheless, wouldn't want to rain on anybody's parade, any excuse to have a party and such -- I even had a celebratory glass of Pimm's while watching the countdown ;)

Earlier in the day I took myself to the V&A, had a bit of a wander and went to the da Vinci exhibition they currently have on. It was interesting enough -- not of his art, but rather about how he 'thought' on paper, so lots of sheets of his notes and diagrams were on display, carefully exhibited by theme. I came away without having gained much knowledge other than that he was a genius and a damned good artist, but somehow I think these are not new conclusions. Still the notebooks were interesting, full of his 'mirror' writing (apparently because he was too lazy to train his dominant left hand to write left to right) and gorgeously sketched doodles of craggy Roman face profiles. Some of his anatomical drawings in particular were wonderful (he'd even noted the optic chiasma), and the exhibition was careful to point out examples of his highly lateral thinking with constant almost seamless drawing of analogies between nature and machine, microcosm and macrocosm. He seemed to think that natural design was the ultimate perfection; a very worthy philosophy, I suppose, although now I think we would hesitate to design a machine with an eye that has a retina wired in backwards like ours does.

Elsewhere in the V&A I also enjoyed:

This 1955 Givenchy dress which I fell in love with,