I'm still amazed by how far the Lego Star Wars franchise is going. Today's piece de resistance (that's 'piece of resistance' for those of you wot don't speak French) is the new Imperial Star Destroyer. Mmm... I can see little John salivating already at this new toy. My fave is still the sand speeder though - and that was only $5. 'Cos it lets you use your 'magination. Broom. Brooom.

OK. Too much regression to childhood there for a Monday. In the meantime the new Groove Armada album - Lovebox - is quite splendid. Some duff and boring tracks but some real stonkers as well. Particular like 'Purple Haze' and 'Madder' at the moment. Now I'm off from work to brave the terrorist threatened tube... just like being back in New York last year. Sigh.

Today's recurring theme seems to be all about shedding of identity and growth. This first cropped up when I went along to the Royal Academy's Masters of Colour exhibition - this was after a recommendation from G'ette and as a change from mine and Helen's normal drunken sundays. Bit of cultcha, init.

Since the queue for tickets was so long I ended up buying a year membership to the RA which lets you and a friend in for free to all exhibitions. We wandered from the colour exhibition which was interesting, especially some of the Kandinsky work, but it was totally packed and you couldn't really enjoy it. So we left fairly quickly, but then wandered downstairs to the new Aztec exhibition - something that always used to be a favourite subject of mine. This was much more fun - fairly quiet and with some beautiful examples of Aztec art.

Learnt two new things about Aztecs today that stuck in my mind - firstly, their temples are actually layers built on top of old temples. Each temple is successively bigger and contains the older temple. Noone's quite sure why they did this but there was a clever computer animation that showed it off well. The other thing was that they revered snakes (especially feathered ones) for their ability to shed their skin and continue on to grow bigger and stronger.

The second shedding reference was in the film 'Morven Callar'. This is a wonderfully shot film telling the story of a girl who comes in one day to find her boyfriend's committed suicide in the kitchen. Well, awkwardly in the door between the kitchen and the living room actually. He's left behind a manuscript that he wants Morven to publish post-humously but things don't quite go to his plan. The story revolves a lot around what people expect of you and you of them and alongside that how you can step away from what you are. This is coupled with a superb Warp records soundtrack and amazing photography - extreme close-ups and subtle colour palettes. Go see it.

I believe very strongly in synchronicity, but I also know I often fight things that happen. I also believe that synchronicity is your brain filtering out what it needs you to 'see' from everything that happens every day. This is actually the basis for NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) which is where you actively make your brain notice things you want it to see. So I guess this is some part of my brain telling me I need to shed some part of myself, or maybe even my whole current self. Answers on a synchronic postcard to the usual neuron please.

Today I are mostly about exhibits in London... Over the past few weeks I've been to a couple of shows that are so completely different I thought it was worth mentioning them both.

First up, Body Worlds. This is an exhibit of 'real human bodies' in anatomical poses. What this means is basically human bodies that have been put through a process called plastination which replaces flesh with plastic in the same positions. All very useful for doctors and medical research. Body worlds however is for the public, a public that apparently wants to see actual dead people put into stupid positions with apparently very little respect. Not to say there wasn't interesting parts to this exhibition - the complete blood system had an amazing beauty to it and looked incredibly eerie floating in water on its own - ie, sans body.

But here are my concerns -

None of what was there couldn't have just been done with plastic, rather than real bodies.

How do foetuses and young children give their permission for this? Did these people really know they were going to get gawped at my the general public rather than contributing to medical research.

The bodies are suspending with little or no protection - so everyone, especially kids, are poking and prodding.

Flesh post-plastination has no vibrancy. It's like leather, or even pleather, with none of the beauty and dynamicism of live flesh.

Most of the bodies have been hacked about to 'present the best view of how the body works'. Bollocks. How does seeing muscles at right angles to the body help us understand how the body works? At best they are just aesthetically appalling, at worst they are sick.