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

I -beg- your pardon?!

I loved both lego and erector sets (apparently the US version of Meccano). But then, I was also the one whom my parents would hand any toy (or furniture, or appliance, or....) and beg, "Please, please, PLEASE just -play- with it for a week or two before tearing it apart to see how it works!" ... Of course, I always got round to putting them back together (properly, I might add), but that wasn't the point. My garage (which my parents foolishly called my 'room' ) was generally cluttered with 'projects' in various stages, and when walking through at 3 o'clock in the morning barefooted and bleary-eyed to shut a window due to an untimely thunderstorm they just never knew what they might step on til it was too late.

Hey, don't be so limited in your outlook! Tech Lego is great but Star Wars Lego is the ultimate in unfulfilled nostalgia - why didn't they have this stuff when I was eight?

Pardon me, but I was always one of those nostalgic old-fashioned fools, who considered the challenge of creating from basic Lego to be the ultimate challenge.
Today you can buy boats, cars, planes, X-Wings(TM) and an assortment of houses, easily assembled into neat structures, complete with people, accessories and look-a-like gadgets.
When the first Space Shuttle was launched, I BUILT the entire thing in white bricks, complete with ramp, booster rockets and fuel tank. It took time, but the finished model stood almost one metre and looked like a chunky Columbia. Now THAT was a REAL challenge!
Today, you just go out and BUY the thing you want. Nothing really is like when I was a child…
But I still have my original bricks!

Aye! I thought I was the only one of this persuasion... I liked things MUCH better when you just went out and bought a box of XXX pieces and they threw a couple pictures on the box as ideas of what you -could- build just to get you started!

You have of course defined the whole point to Lego as far as I can assertain, it is fun to build a challenging model that either works, or looks like it oughta' or both.
Playing with the finished thing bored the pyjamas of me I'm afraid.

My little brother (13 years my junior) inherited my Lego, does he play with it you ask - nope, cos' he's got a p.c.

Shame really.

Right, there are still followers of ye olde way around...
Nowadays children seem to be unable to combine two or more colours, and that goes for fashion as well. Tell me then, are you a member of the "a house has to be built in one colour of bricks"-fraction or not?

Hail to ye olde ways!

Do you have a version of that that works with sandals?

I'm one and *giggles* I'm also studying Architecture. Watch this space for some *very* colourful buildings

nb. I'm not *that* bad at coding, though I'm struggling with Java (bit of a jump from BASIC)

The stuff was never really the same when it wasn't a pile of bricks littering the floor and a half finished model but a model that was complete in every detail. *sighs* happy memories.

My policy of always replying to any post submitted exactly 42 minutes ago, kicks in once again.

And once again I can think of nothing better to say, so I'll have to do another limerick.

Mr Christiansen (who was a Dane)
Found his children were bored once again
But his Lego idea
Put paid to the fear
Of dull Sundays indoors, in the main.

Lego is available on a PC too.
Set the kid to look at www.lego.com
Or buy him the interactive Lego-CD-rom.
Or smash the window with his monitor and FORCE the little brat to use real-life Lego bricks in stead of virtual ones. Who knows, perhaps he can become a convert yet...

My hopes goes to you both.

Hey, I'm nostalgic too, and I do think a lot of modern Lego is rubbish. But I grew up with space Lego - I had tonnes of little spaceman figures and space vehicles and shuttles and so on, but it's nothing compared with Star Wars Lego. When you buy an X-Wing it doesn't come as two pieces of plastic you have to stick together - It's hundreds of little bits. Okay I'll admit it - I bought the stuff and I had a good hour or so's worth of nostalgic fun building it. It would have taken me ages if I was eight - it's obvious who Lego are marketing this stuff at - I mean with all the emphasis on Episode 1, do young Star Wars fans even know what an X-Wing is? Or Darth Vader? Incidentally, the Ep1 Lego is nowhere near as complex and involving as the original stuff is. Go on, buy yourself a Landspeeder - you won't regret it!

Actually my preference to housing is irregular shaped, multi-coloured field stones -- found in field, even!

I've just had a wonderful time buying lots of Star Wars Lego for an assignment I was working on for my nightschool HNC...

It's indecent to have so much fun in the name of science.

Science = Fun.Squared

Sorry to bother you, but are you sure Lego aren't Danish? I'm pretty sure they are! When the Lego range diversified in to Lego System and Lego Technic then for some reason the manufacture of the Technic (which includes all the gears, motors, pneumatic pistons etc.) was moved to Switzerland. As far as I am aware no Lego is manufactured in Sweden.

Dear Researcher 25968,
Yes, you are quite right.
The LEGO home page [which I know you have been to] substantiates your claim:
1932. "Ole Kirk Christiansen, in the village of Billund, Denmark, sets up business. His firm manufactures...wooden toys."

1934. The company and its products now take on the name LEGO "formed from the Danish words "LEg GOdt" ("play well"). Later, it is realised that in Latin the word means "I study", "I put together"."

1949.LEGO toys are sold only in Denmark, including 'Automatic Binding Bricks' a forerunner of the LEGO bricks we know today.

1956. The first foreign sales company is established in Hohenwestedt, Germany.

As of 1998:
"The LEGO production area in Denmark, Switzerland, the USA and Korea totals almost 375,000 squaremeters. At the end of 1998, there are around 10,000 employees in the LEGO Group. Of these, approximately 4,300 work in Denmark and approx. 4,700 work abroad."

And: "In March, work begins on a new 22-metre-high element warehouse at Kornmarken in Billund. The 8,500 squaremeters warehouse is scheduled for completion in October 1999."

So you are entirely right.

I see you have already written a LEGO article. It looks like a great start.

The "Approved" guide entry for Classic Children's Toys made it's debut today at http://www.h2g2.com/A224696 . Judging by the thread in this forum, there are lots of LEGO devotees on h2g2. Why doncha post a link to your LEGO page in the forum for the new 'approved' Classic Children's toys' entry. And submit your LEGO article for approval. There is only one other article at the moment, and that is on Legoland in the UK. So you have filled a glaring gap in the Guide!

}:=8

PS I am just discovering Terry Pratchett myself. great reading!

As usual, I'm late by too many weeks to count. So I'll make up for it by taking the thread completely off topic!

Carlsberg beer a serious contender??? Now, way José -- that should be Tuborg...!

[This is a religious subject among Danes -- just so that you're all warned]

Back on track: Thanks for defending the Danish colours in terms of the proper origin of Lego!

I do agree on the joys of constructing from the ground up (somewhat later in this thread) -- and I must admit that I belonged to the "throw together any odd coloured approximately appropriate form of brick to make it look just about what you try to build" school...

But then again, I'm in marketing, not in technical development these days...

Thanks for your enthusiasm! Did you memorise all that or write it down? Unfortunately I haven't quite figured out yet how to get one of my artucles approved or how to post a link. I'll try to find out though!

Good luck with your Pratchett reading; in my opinion "Guards! Guards!" is the best novel he has written yet (of the ones I have read).

Thanks again,
R25968