
Probably The World's Greatest Jeweller - pepys
http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/lifestyle/isabel-lloyd/gem?page=full
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ErikRogneby
Quite a sensationalist title. Perhaps I don't fully comprehend the ins and
outs of high end jewelry but the pictures felt like over the top items that
might be costume jewelry or might be part of Liberace's estate sale...

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jlarocco
I appreciate the work that must go into the pieces, but they're way too over
the top and gaudy for my taste, also.

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toothbrush
I've always found it hard to grasp why humans place such high value in
substances such as diamond and gold. I understand that they are very durable
as opposed to other materials, but their inherent value is something i don't
quite understand. Diamonds and gold of course have their industrial
applications, but apart from that i really just don't get it.

Something also tells me that if this guy wasn't absolutely stinking rich but
was just a regular grumpy 70-something, there would be significantly fewer
people fawning over his egotistical temperament.

 _In its centre was what looked like a pale twig from a cherry-blossom tree,
scattered with creamy droplets of melting snow—tiny diamond beads pierced with
silvery pins, gentle, serene and exquisite. It was like a Japanese painting,
and it moved me almost to tears._

Something tells me i would find it very hard to get along with these people.
Anyway, to each their own i guess, it just seems sad that people get so caught
up in their own bubbles to the exclusion of things "that matter". Here, i
guess, lies the thorny issue: who is to say that there is an absolute measure
of "mattering". Personally, i would say it's probably of more importance to
work to feed the world's hungry, but i imagine that when one is among an
audience who would nonchalantly drop a few hundred thousands on a Shiny Thing,
there is bound to be disagreement on that. I admit though that i have no more
right than they to decide what constitutes a valid cause, so i am trying to
avoid judging. It just seems so, i don't know... _wasteful_.

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nmyk
>> Something also tells me that if this guy wasn't absolutely stinking rich
but was just a regular grumpy 70-something, there would be significantly fewer
people fawning over his egotistical temperament.

You're forgetting the thing about him where he makes art that is unbelievably
beautiful. He says himself he'd still do it even if his materials were
worthless.

But who knows why people want to spend hundreds of thousands to own it.

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They
possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where
we are hard, cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were
born rich, it is very difficult to understand." \- F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The
Rich Boy"

