Melting Time
Hat tip to Reddit user ExpertAccident
These days candles are mostly used for aesthetic or cultural reasons. We use them to set the right mood at dinner parties, celebrate important milestones and light our way when the power goes out (some of us also use them to enhance a satanic ritual from time to time). But many moons ago, as hightlighted in the Reddit post above, candles were also used to keep track of time. I love this idea of candle clocks and melting time so thought I’d propose some updated versions of my own.
Classic Football Match Candles
Could we celebrate classic football matches using tall, thin candles that burn for 90 minutes? Shown below is Ireland’s famous World Cup victory over Italy at USA 94 - celebrated in candle form. On the reverse side, 12 minutes into the official match candle, is the moment Ray Houghton chipped Italian keeper Gianluca Pagliuca to put Ireland ahead.
Offical Ireland v Italy World Cup 94 match candle
Frenzied AI generated man celebrating the goal
Flight Tracking Candles
Or for the plane spotters and aviation enthusiasts among us, what if popular flight routes were available on candle? Like a kind of waxy flight simulator, these candles would make the world your oyster. All you have to do is buckle into your favourite armchair at home, pop your phone on airplane mode and melt your way to a range of destinations.
Popular routes taking off from your kitchen table
Following a loved ones flight from home
Listening Candles
To help savour a favourite album, what if we made listening candles? Light the wick, hit play on your music, and follow along as you burn through the album’s track listing.
John Martyn’s Solid Air - now available on wax
On your birthday, instead of blowing out an ever increasing quantity of small candles, what if you had one giant birthday candle that burned for the full 24 hours of your big day?
The ultimate 24 hour candle
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An offical Dr. Oetker candle — A candle that lasts 18 mins long and times your pizza cooking in the oven. Delicously useless.
- The Wire Box Set Candles — Each season of The Wire has approx 12 episodes, lasting an hour each. We would make 5 candles, one for each of the 5 seasons that burn for approx 12 hours. To make the show more immersive each candle would be scented to smell like the setting of each season (e.g. Season 2 is set at the docks).
- Home Time — A candle that burns for 9 hours - a standard working day (including lunch). Light it at 9am when you start and go home when it extinguishes. To help you out the door, the final 10 mins of the candle could be scented to smell like raw sewage.
- Feel free to send me any of your ideas too?