h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is anyone else watching this (it's on BBC 2)? It took me a couple of episodes to warm up to it but I'm loving it now.

I like any kind of pottery. Even Harry.

Buh-dum tchh!

Get that man a drink.

I'll have purple Kool-Ade

Yes I've watched the last few episodes, although I wasn't sure about it at first either. Fascinating to see all the things they can make...

Have you done much pottery yourself? I've had a couple of goes on a potter's wheel, with varying degrees of success The best pot I threw is probably the one that twisted out of my hands, so it has a fascinating organic shape. The 'teacup' I made which was about 1cm thick is not something I consider a success, although the tutor was happy with it. And one I made when I was a child is rather good - not quite the shape I had in mind, because the tutor stopped me experimenting and showed me how to do what everyone else had done, but I got to decorate it with colours that changed after firing, so that was fascinating.

I got quite good at coil building at one stage, and I actually prefer it to the potter's wheel as I have more control over the clay then. I made some Roman style statuettes and cups, and they turned out well.

I had to do pottery at school because I was no good at drawing and painting. I wasn't any good at pottery either, and still have an elephant and a couple of ashtrays (!) to prove it.

My children's efforts were no better - I have one object which is quite indefinable, it's only good for growing cress in.

I'm a retired Art and Pottery teacher..and I watch it. I get a trifled annoyed however as the contestants are given laughably short time periods to construct large items because in a bespoke world it takes as long as it takes. Indeed I find the constraints of time applied to artistic endeavours ridiculous. The portrait painter and landscape shows of recent years also suffer from this..I doubt anyone would tell Damien Hirst he only has 4 hours to produce a large sculpture.

When dealing with art examination students one teaches them that if they are going to finish in the time provided( and we are talking a lot longer than 4 hours to complete an exam piece) that they need to concentrate on producing work that they can finish in the time constraints..If only the judges were doing that.

Having said that I'm pleased to see this show because the craft of pottery has all but disappeared from the school curriculum and it's getting harder for adults to find any local adult education classes to learn about the subject.

Yes, that was something that troubled me early on, that one of the potters was slower and got penalised even though the work was of good quality rather than quantity...

It is something to remember that these programmes don't necessarily find the *best* person who does [insert activity here] but do find the person who can produce a variety of adequate work in a relatively short time... That is a good example about Damien Hirst - hopefully the best people can achieve something even if they don't win these sorts of competitions...

That is also something I hadn't thought of, that I had art lessons at school, but pottery was never part of that. We did some craft, as we had to hand print some material and make something out of it, but it was mostly pencil sketching or poster paint that we used...

We did a bit if pottery at school (I believe my parents still have a couple of my creations!) but I never got to throw something on a wheel which I would love to do one day.

The time constraint is similar on the Sewing Bee as well. I guess in a tailoring business you would be expected to work at a reasonably high speed and they carried that sort of format across to the Throw Down.

You cannot compare the skills of needlework with those of pottery mainly because clay has an added complication that it has to have time to firm up so as to work on it because once it dries completely one cannot continue to work on it..Whereas working with fabrics one can pretty much move on to the next stage without having to wait because there are no similar problems.

I had to ban my husband from watching it,
we both have a BA degree in pottery and he now has his masters
but this program... well he made some youtube videos based on last years throwdown I think as part of his masters degree it was interesting and the father of the winner was one of our tutors at uni... *tenuous claim to fame*
but some of the tasks were unbelievable
I haven't seen this series but I shall have to catch up on it in secret

Really? A toilet? A flushable toilet? Not something I've ever had the wish or desire to make as a potter.After all the industry has it down pat by casting the damned things.

At least Jonny Vegas provided a laugh.

It was a bit bizarre but I think the winning one did really well.

Useful pottery tool for smoothing the surface of a pinch or coil or other pottery project, a pumice stone.

The pumice itself is a form of rhyolite, so is compatible in the form of dust with the clay body.

Painting or dipping in slips helps refine the surface beyond that, especially with a sandy clay body.

Well there was the final. It went down pretty much as Mr Vip and I expected, although I did like the way they all went down completely different construction routes (and not the ones we thought they would!).

Not seen it yet.. I was away on a little jaunt to London..went to the Hockney Exhibition.

Porcelain is a swine to work with so kudos the final attempts..not sure about the torso build though. Thought that was odd. I felt they were running out of ideas for challenges with that one.