V is for...

Violon d'Ingres.

I don't remember the first time I heard this expression, but I think it's great. If you're not familiar with it, Ingres was a 19th century French artist, famous for paintings such as this:

For the artist, his favourite pastime - if you consider that painting was his job - was playing the violin. Hence, any activity that you do for pleasure and not as a job is your equivalent of Ingres' violin-playing.

Love it.

The "Violon d'Ingres" is also a very famous photo by the great Man Ray:

which suggests that for the photographer, women were his "violon d'Ingres".

Go on, I dare you! Try and fit this expression into your conversation tomorrow.

And my "violon d'Ingres"? Hmmm. Maybe reading, maybe arts and crafts. I'm not sure... What's yours?