On entering the Shard from London Bridge station, visitors are immediately treated to a glimpse of British humour.
That would leave the Shard as the undisputed tallest tower in Europe if it ever gets built.
Standing at 235m (770ft), One Canada Square in Canary Wharf is second to the Shard in height.
He then removes a green pen from his jacket and draws me an aerial sketch of The Shard.
Whether it's an affront or not, Londoners might as well ring in the Shard while they're at it.
He says that when he watches people looking at The Shard he sees in their faces "amazement" and "wonder".
When finished, the structure will stand around 3, 280 ft (1km) high, more than three times taller than the Shard.
The shard caused scratch marks on the woman's neck and stomach, but she will not require further medical attention.
The phallic structural girth of the Shard either adds or detracts from that well-earned reputation, depending upon whom you ask.
The app also includes 360-degree photographic panoramas of everything from Westminster Cathedral to views from the top of the Shard.
To some the Shard is a new icon for London - a demonstration of the energy, urgency and modernity of the great city.
First, construction on The Shard, architect Renzo Piano's shimmering, 72-story skyscraper, wrapped up in London, making it the tallest building in Europe.
With enough money to bankroll anything from the Shard skyscraper in London to rebel fighters in Libya, fans of any club approached by Qatari state-backed buyers can be quietly confident.
The Shard has 11, 000 glass panels, with each side equalling a total area of 56, 000 sq m (603, 000 sq ft), meaning there was a genuine concern over a possible greenhouse effect.
The View from the Shard (the name given to the public viewing galleries on floors 68 to 72), which opens to the public on 1 February, is indeed a view like no other.
Construction of the towers, which will be Europe's tallest buildings when completed eclipsing three skyscrapers in Moscow and the Shard in London will start at the end of this year or beginning of next year.
Before the official party kicks off, the Shard public-relations team on Wednesday invited dozens of media members to an embargoed chat with several key players in the 12-year odyssey of turning the Shard into reality.
From the 360-degree observation deck on the 72nd floor of the Shard, the tallest building in Western Europe at 310m, London opens up like a pop-up book and the landmarks of St Paul's Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and Tower Bridge look toy-town tiny.
Each time the Olympic flame is exchanged between two torchbearers, the gold shard motifs on the uniforms connect the torchbearers visually as the lines link together.
BBC: London 2012: Will the Olympic Games be a stylish affair?
With its short life and great height, the spiky Shard graphically illustrates exponentially increasing inner-city land values, while the chaos of old and new masonry surrounding it testifies to the greed and short-termism of successive generations.
Multiple gold shards are used at the elbow to focus the eye on the arm, with a final shard continuing down to the cuff and the hand holding the torch.
BBC: London 2012: Will the Olympic Games be a stylish affair?
Among the artifacts to be included: a transistor, Louis Armstrong's trumpet, a shard of the dismantled Berlin Wall, a photo of civil rights activist Rosa Parks, and a film of Neil Armstrong's first walk on the moon.
However, the trust declined to confirm whether a shard of glass was used in the incident.
The company that built London's Shard skyscraper has been chosen to oversee the construction of a tower in Saudi Arabia set to be the world's tallest.
It's just a tiny bright shard in the vast wreckage of the real estate market.
The first to take the microphone and address the gathering was Sheikh Abdullah Bin Saoud Al Thani, the governor of Qatar's central bank and the chairman of the board of directors of Shard Funding Ltd.
It is believed he then threatened staff with a shard of glass from the window.
Under the plan, which must be approved by the City Council, developers could build more if they pay for architecture with the swagger of London's Shard or Shanghai Tower.
Aqua Shard occupies two separate wings linked in the middle by a dramatic atrium bar with floor-to-ceiling windows over three floors.
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