Block of the Week: Stained Glass

Stained glass was added to Minecraft in version 1.7.2 in 2013, alongside many new biomes and structures, new flowers and wood varieties, and the pufferfish. It's made by surrounding any colour of dye with regular glass in a crafting bench, and - just like regular glass - can be made into panes if you prefer. Also like regular glass, it's really easy to break by accident. Curse my clumsy hands!

In version 1.8, stained glass was tweaked so that it could change the colour of a beacon and have torches placed on it, and version 1.9 saw the magenta version used as the windows of End cities, so if for some reason you hate crafting (yet play a game called Minecraft??) then you can collect it there. Like the regular, plain Minecraft glass, stained glass can only be broken with a tool enchanted with Silk Touch, otherwise it's lost forever.

Making real-world stained glass is a bit more complex than it is in Minecraft. Either coloured chemicals called "salts" are added to the molten glass during manufacture, or the glass is painted and then baked in a kiln. Once created, though, glass sticks around for a long time - many of the windows made for churches in medieval times are still intact, long after the books that inspired them have rotted away. Maybe we should start making books out of stained glass? Hey, that's a million dollar idea! Please don't steal it.

Stained glass is also used for more than just church decoration. It's popular in the Middle East, where it's found in mosques and synagogues. It can also be spotted in places like banks, restaurants, pubs and railway stations. Artists mould it into sculptures, and you'll even find it in some homes. Does your home have stained glass? And if not, where's the nearest example you can find? Snap a picture of it if you can, but don't worry if you can't - it'll be around for a long, looooooong time. That's why I've had all my Block of the Week articles printed on Stained Glass. It was expensive, yes. I'm homeless now, true. But can you really put a price on immortalising your work for hundreds of years? Exactly!

P.S. If anyone wants to buy a stained glass Block of the Week, email me at hungrywriterwhomakesbadchoices@gmail.com. Please. Duncan miss food.