LEGO
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The launching pad for a million careers in anything from engineering and architecture to international warfare has been the simple lego brick. Started many years ago in Denmark, the lego brick is one of the world's most recognisable toys, and certainly the most adaptable. Legoland is Denmark's biggest tourist attraction, and certainly was the only reason this contributor could think of to visit Denmark as a child (although I never did).
For those who do not know lego, it is difficult to describe the appeal of small plastic bricks which interconnect to form new shapes and toys, but the appeal of lego has remained undimmed for years. Able to adapt to changing fads, lego has, by its simplicity, been able to change with the times through the years, so that of all toys, lego is the only one that is always truly cool.
Simply put, whenever your lego fire station gets boring, it can be transformed in a short while into a race-car track. When the track has out-stayed its welcome, it becomes a football stadium. When football is not in season, it is so easy to make a boat and sail around the world it's untrue.
One key advantage of lego is that it can be manipulated by its owner to certain devious ends. For example when the Transformers were the most popular toy of their time, particularly resourceful children who didn't have Transformers could make Transformers out of lego, and then complain to their parents that they didn't have the real thing, and that it wasn't fair because Timmy down the road had loads of them. The fact that the lego invariably outlasted the Transformers was entirely irrelevant, the point was made, and the Transformer obtained.
Lego itself comes in boxes ranging in size from the very small, to the bigger than the owner variety. Prices vary similarly. The box itself always has a nice colour picture on the front of what the bricks contained within are supposed to look like when assembled, and a few similar pictures on the back of alternative designs. A small instruction booklet is contained within (the proudest boast of a lego builder is that he never had to look at the instructions) and the box will contain anything from about 20 to several hundred bricks in various colours, sizes and shapes. That's all very nice initially, but generally within a space of time between 1 to 6 weeks of the box being opened, (although some particularly cherished items have lasted several months) the original design which appeared on the box will have been disregarded, and the bricks involved dispatched to a large box of bricks from other sets which met a similar fate, from which other wonderful toys can emerge. This fabled "lego box" is the centre of the owner's universe, and contains the answer to life, the universe and, wouldn't you know it, everything.
For those who do not know lego, it is difficult to describe the appeal of small plastic bricks which interconnect to form new shapes and toys, but the appeal of lego has remained undimmed for years. Able to adapt to changing fads, lego has, by its simplicity, been able to change with the times through the years, so that of all toys, lego is the only one that is always truly cool.
Simply put, whenever your lego fire station gets boring, it can be transformed in a short while into a race-car track. When the track has out-stayed its welcome, it becomes a football stadium. When football is not in season, it is so easy to make a boat and sail around the world it's untrue.
One key advantage of lego is that it can be manipulated by its owner to certain devious ends. For example when the Transformers were the most popular toy of their time, particularly resourceful children who didn't have Transformers could make Transformers out of lego, and then complain to their parents that they didn't have the real thing, and that it wasn't fair because Timmy down the road had loads of them. The fact that the lego invariably outlasted the Transformers was entirely irrelevant, the point was made, and the Transformer obtained.
Lego itself comes in boxes ranging in size from the very small, to the bigger than the owner variety. Prices vary similarly. The box itself always has a nice colour picture on the front of what the bricks contained within are supposed to look like when assembled, and a few similar pictures on the back of alternative designs. A small instruction booklet is contained within (the proudest boast of a lego builder is that he never had to look at the instructions) and the box will contain anything from about 20 to several hundred bricks in various colours, sizes and shapes. That's all very nice initially, but generally within a space of time between 1 to 6 weeks of the box being opened, (although some particularly cherished items have lasted several months) the original design which appeared on the box will have been disregarded, and the bricks involved dispatched to a large box of bricks from other sets which met a similar fate, from which other wonderful toys can emerge. This fabled "lego box" is the centre of the owner's universe, and contains the answer to life, the universe and, wouldn't you know it, everything.
