A four-sided tapering obelisk with a slanted hole at the top. The usual pyramid shaped top is not present and is squared off and flat. Many of us will have smiled when we first heard about Cleopatra’s Needle in London, because we now only generally associate needles with sewing. Alan Wilson, the sculptor, seems to have taken the humour of the name a stage further. There is a hole at the top of his obelisk that goes from one side to another – like a sewing needle. Also, rather than being made in stone, the Bracknell obelisk is made of steel – again, like a sewing needle. There is another aspect to it, too, when you consider that the production of steel involves heating iron at a temperature of approximately 1,370°C (2,500°F). This steel obelisk could be seen as a present-day embodiment of a ray of the sun, in that it is created with intense heat and glints with the rays of the sun.