A Walk Down Piccadilly

Yesterday, I decided to go to the National Gallery to get a copy of the Leonardo exhibition catalogue so I can study it before I go to see the pictures on Dec 13. There is a lot of hooha about how big the lady's hand is in the Lady With Ermine (the picture used on the cover). But lots of Leonardo's pictures have weird perspective: enormous babies, and yet more enormous hands. We're not talking about photography here, peeps. On my way I stopped off in Piccadilly at the Royal Academy, to renew my membership and see Building the Revolution - Russian Art and Architecture 1915-1935. What is fascinating about this period is not only how beautiful the designs were, but how pitiful the buildings now look in photographs of the few that were actually built, neglected by a failed system. Yes, the system failed. I think of that a lot at present. Beautiful dreams can have horrible results. If you delve a little into the dream that was the Soviet Union or indeed the European Union you find a fatal lack of grass roots democracy, the emergence of an elite who thinks it knows better. Even election results are rejected if they aren't the 'right' result. VIP visitors from the USSR used to clutch at my arm and whisper 'Don't let it happen here, Lisa'.