Tuesday, September 26, 2006

And no gels . . .

The Guardian has more on the aborted loan by Bill Gates of a Leonardo notebook to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The museum says it passed on the loan because of the "draconian" security measures Gates's team was requiring, including "airport-style" security: "having people being searched going in, having to leave all their metallic objects behind and so on." For their part, the Gates people say they have exhibited the object "more than a dozen times in major museums around the world" and "there is nothing we were asking of the V&A that was any different to what we have worked on with these museums."