Today's Mystery Object...

...is actually a candle we were given recently. It's about 7"/18cm tall and about 2"/5cm in diameter, with fluting all down its sides like a classical column (it also reminds me a bit of the chimneys at the old Battersea Power Station). When you burn it, the wax is supposed to burn through the thinner parts of the rim and drip down the side to produce 'spectacular latticework effects'.

We've burned it for a few hours now, and none of this has actually happened, but the top of the candle now bears an interesting resemblance to the 'crown of light' at the top of Liverpool's Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral.