olympic cauldron

Well, I was prepared to hate the opening ceremony for the Olympic games which was on last night (sorry that my friends in the US had a somewhat edited version of it) but I loved the crazy Britishness of it all. There were just so many fantastic moments! My two favourites were the pogo-ing creatures during the "Pretty Vacant" section and the bit which is of most interest to metalsmiths, the lighting of the unbelievably beautiful "Cauldron" for the flame.


 
It was designed by the startlingly under-appreciated Thomas Heatherwick, who currently has a retrospective at the V&A in London. I say "under-appreciated" because I believe that he has not achieved the popularity of many of the other designers who set themselves to a similar range of projects. Consider, for example, Philippe Starck, who is a household name. Heatherwick is, in my opinion, a far more interesting designer and yet one who seems to still be appreciated mainly by the cognoscenti.
If you want to see it in action, BBC coverage is here.