A bit of a rant about nothing of consequence...

As I lay in bed at 4.30 am I was awakened by and forced to listen to Storm Ciera - bloody silly name that, how about Storm Shitera because that is what she is. Anyway, as I listened to the wind and rain battering the world outside I had this odd thought that I was glad the cottage was made from three feet thick stone boulders and not plastic lego bricks. As I listened and the cottage shook a little I thought, go on nobody will mind if you have a little rant about Lego. So here you go...

I've never quite understood why so many countries that regularly get hurricanes, tornadoes, and really high winds build houses made from plywood, tin and roofing felt. It's not exactly sensible, is it? 'Oh I live in tornado alley but I'm sure that I can live in a huge cardboard box with no problem, it's not like my home isn't made from very sturdy hardboard!' It's all a bit three little pigs really - oink, oink, oink. Anyway, all that huffing and puffing and the blowing houses down made me think about lego.

Of course, I had lego as a kid. Bits of green, yellow, blue and of course red nobbly, clicky plastic with which I constructed really terrible buildings and even more terrible robots. I can't say I was over-excited by it, but then there were no overpriced Millenium Falcons back then and no shitty superhero and Dr Who figures. To be honest it was all a bit crap as a toy especially as I had a ray gun and a yo-yo and a tree to climb. Anyway, I was more of a metal Mecano sort of kid as I used my tiny spanner and screwdriver to make really terrible buildings and even more terrible robots which rattled because I never tightened my little brass nuts properly (fnar fnar). I think it would be fair to say that I was never going to become a builder, an engineer, or even have tight nuts. My trains didn't choo and my homes looked like square toilet blocks, so I guess in many ways you could call me a visionary as it came to pass just like that, blocks of flats and delayed trains. I must be a seer, now where are my crystal balls?

But moving on before I become all ranty... Then there's Legoland of course, or as I think of it Legobland. Just what is the attraction of the Legoland attraction? Oh look, a Lego dinosaur, a Lego double-decker bus, a lego Stonehenge - Yawn fnaring yawn. Tell you what, why not get on a real bus and go to the Natural History Museum or even get you arse down to Stonehenge, the stone one, not the plastic imitation. Listen carefully - Lego is just bloody plastic bricks which aren't exactly life-changing! Worse still, there are Lego 'resorts' all over the world - why not GO TO THE BLOODY BEACH AND SWIM AND ROCKPOOL AND FLY KITES? It's no wonder that so many kids are such a bunch of OCDish, spoilt, unadventurous, boring, little wimpy shysters (I mean that in the nicest possible way of course). Send them all out for a walk on their own and tell them to climb a bloody tree while they're out there. Oh, and don't forget to tell them not to come home until it's really dark. Oh dear, I think I may just have slipped into full ranty mode, I'd better calm down... deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths, happy thoughts... that's better.

It seems to me that everything is so prefabricated these days, it's not just Lego blocks that are plasticised, it really is everything. Lego is just a poor value entertainment designed to sell even more plastic bricks (not exactly environmentally friendly that is it). The films, the Legoland parks and resorts, the lego characters, they are all cynically marketed to make shitloads of dosh out of a simple plastic brick. That'll be 180 quid plus for a family of four please and don't forget to buy some Lego bricks at the gift shop on your way out as a reminder of a happy memory of your visit Mr and Mrs Gullible.

Look, I'm not ranting. I'm not even moaning. I'm just saying. It seems that I'm clearly out of touch with the modern way - thank god.

I wonder, whatever happened to the cardboard box fort and a little imagination?