Public art (1)

"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." William Morris.

I'm not big on the purely functional. Maybe those plunger things that you use to clear your toilet (God forbid that I ever have to use one) are OK just as they are but, for the most part, I think everything benefits from a bit of design.

And at the other extreme, I don't believe everything has to have a use or a function. In our public spaces, I think it's wonderful when there is something creative and unexpected it the midst of our daily lives, there for no purpose other than to interest and entertain us.

And here we are at Heathrow, Terminal 5: these jets set into the ground that shoot water up into the air, sometimes in a continuous stream and sometimes spurting bolts of water that look almost like they are trampolining.

I stood watching, with my coffee and my camera, until they went into the spurting phase. This is the best shot I got, trying to capture the moment when the fountains shut off and the plumes of water hang rootless in the air.