On 11 February Sotheby's Will Once Again Offer David Hockney's "Splash"

On 11 February Sotheby's will once again offer David Hockney's "Splash". The painting is expected to fetch as much as $39 million. In 2006 "Splash" was sold for £2.9 million. One of the three splashes is going under the hammer: there is also the Little one of 1966 and the Large one of 1967, which hangs in Tate Modern. For a time Hockney was the most expensive living artist, his "Portrait of an Artist" having sold the year before last for $90 million, before Koons broke the record. This year Hockney turns 93.

But really, of course, all these mad sums paid for art speak less of its rise in value than of the debasement of money and of giddy super-capital.

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

In the finale of the Strugatskys' Roadside Picnic, the Golden Ball is told: "Happiness for everybody, free, and let nobody go away unsatisfied!" I do not promise to offend nobody, but the digest really does come free of charge. So, here is the main business of the

Frederic Leighton

Frederic Leighton. “Daedalus and Icarus”, 1869 Daedalus warns his son not to climb too high: the heat of the sun may melt the wax, but Icarus is already gazing into the distance, and the lamentations of a foolish old man interest him not in the least

On 11 February Sotheby's Will Once Again Offer David Hockney's "Splash"

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September digest: archaeological finds, exhibitions, museums, theatre and the Church

Frederic Leighton

Attempts to resolve the problems of many years of uncontrolled mass migration

Characters from Gogol's "Petersburg Tales" on the pedestal of the monument to Nikolai Gogol on Nikitsky Boulevard, photograph of the 1960s