The study was enormous, dominated by a massive glass and steel desk shaped like a crescent moon.

Blanc splashed red-brown liquid into a glass shaped like a balloon and took up a chair behind the desk.

Each pedestal held a container of thick glass, shaped like a mammoth test tube.

Wine enthusiasts have always known that glasses shaped in certain ways could enhance the best qualities of a wine.

Lucy was holding two tall glasses shaped like vertical trumpet horns with round balls at the lower end.

It is made from a piece of glass shaped like four right-angled reflecting prisms joined face-to-face in a twisted fashion.

All the light fixtures on the walls were pink glass shaped into gigantic marquise-cut diamond shapes.

This was a smooth little bulge of glass, cleverly shaped so that anyone looking through it from inside saw out at a wide angle.

"They have lots of kooky, cheap things that are fun, everything from glasses shaped like coconuts to paper umbrellas," she said.

On one side is a ball, on the other a pane of glass shaped like the lid of a coffin.