Lego - Build a dream

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

As requested a Lego thread. Reminesce about your Lego memories. Wallow in the nostalgia of your broken dreams as you look back at how simple life was when just had to worry about finding that piece of Lego you just knew was somewhere in the box. When you could bulid a fort in your bed without any laughing and when you hadn't learnt about wanking yet.

[Tre]

There is now a Lego shop in Milton Keynes - possibly the only good thing about the place.
I tried to persuade the other half that maybe we should have kids so I could have an excuse for buying some. This lead to a huge argument about Duplo - which I said was crap.

I used to love Lego, I had a huge big red box full of the stuff. Every time my dad went away (London marathon, teachers conferences etc etc) I'd make him something for when he got back. Of course, he would then dismantle it and build a better one.

THEN my little brother came along, which meant I could then dismantle his creations and shatter his dreams by making bigger, better houses etc.

I remember my mam always having to check the hoover bag if we'd had the Lego out, generaly there were at least 2 car lights, and a few single bricks in there.

[Lt Plonker]

Lego is so shit nowdays. I remember the joy of spending hours constructing an Octan Petrol Truck and Lego Airport.

Now you get all this Harry Potter/Star Wars pre-moulded bollocks. Pfff.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Lego is so shit nowdays. I remember the joy of spending hours constructing an Octan Petrol Truck and Lego Airport.

Now you get all this Harry Potter/Star Wars pre-moulded bollocks. Pfff.

Bang on there. New lego sets are more like Airfix kits these days. How are kids meant to learn initiative when everything's done for them?

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Most of my Lego was bought from car boot sales apart from a Police Station, a gay Paradiso house and a Police truck. I think my mum secretly took it all to her school and handed it out to all the children just to spite me.

[gazzyk1ns]

I was delighted when Lalla posted those manuals but then confused when most poeple started talking about basic Lego - I never really played around with that, although obviously I did the obligatory things like building a house on one of those green bases when I had the chance.

But surely most of you loved Lego Technic? Reading about what it's like now on here, and after a quick Google, I'm really depressed. The best thing about it when I was a kid was that all the things were built out of generic parts which you were used to "working with" - it made the new things you got even more exciting, someone had to work out how to make it from existing parts. Something devised and then made into Lego, with mostly custom parts? Yeah, big deal. Of course new pieces got invented along the way, like the weird white bits in the wishbones of the late 80s red car, but they were always widely re-used in other models; just an addition to the family. That red car (the one at the bottom of this leaflet) was my all-time favourite, for someone of my age back then to properly (i.e. so it actually functioned correctly, as opposed to just looking right) build the gearbox was no mean feat. From that sort of era I had the big yellow JCB too, though I remember that as being easier to build. I also had the big black car from the late 70s/early 80s, my brother handed it down to me. I had to improvise and use pieces from my newer models because he'd lost some of the originals.

I think I sold all of my Lego ages ago, I can't remember - I'm going up in the loft tomorrow in search of it though. If I've still got anywhere near all of it, and the instructions, then I'll have to borrow a camera and post pictures of me building it. It will proably disappoint me and take about 15 minutes to build each thing, but there. The Christmas I got that big JCB I had to be forcefully put to bed, aaahh for the days when you genuinely got really excited about something. ..

Oh yeah, people who thought you could substitute white pegs for black pegs... IDIOTS! And don't get me started about people who didn't understand that those newer, little clampy-things (bushes?) would sometimes need to be locked together, and so slid together facing each other.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Technic is surely the greatest thing ever. A perfect mix of creativity and scientific thinking. I look forward to the day when my nephew is old enough to play with all my old technic stuff, so I can relive my own chidhood.

I had the JCB until one of my big sister's friends dismantled it for some twisted, quite possibly evil reason.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

I think I might have got a similar thing to that Technic car. It had a little electric motor and came with 3 men. I didn't really like it as much as normal Lego. The men and their flexable joints were quite usuful for make my first attempts at animated films though.

[gazzyk1ns]

Those bigger, properly flexible Lego men were a newer thing, I think they might have published adaptations to existing models involving electrics, which you had to buy seperately. Or maybe you could chose to build a car with an electric motor, but whilst it would actually move independently, it would look a bit like something with a big motor stuck up its arse? I can't remember, you certainly used to get separate "...and this is what to do if you want to use the electrics" in the back of some manuals. I'm possibly thinking of the official "special" manuals which you could buy on their own each year from good toy shops, I dunno. They were great, but clearly a veiled marketing ploy aimed at people who loved Technic but didn't buy much of it - if you were halfway through building something and you needed a 4th size 12 rod, then of course you were going to buy something which had one. I actually got my parents to order a component from the official spares manual once. I felt special.

[Sherringford Hovis]

That red car (the one at the bottom of this leaflet) was my all-time favourite, for someone of my age back then to properly (i.e. so it actually functioned correctly, as opposed to just looking right) build the gearbox was no mean feat.

Pfft. If Fabuland gives you the horn, then maybe. The gearbox and pistons on this monster were a true test of your Lego mettle. Also, in agreement with the discussion on the thread below this boxshot, the instructions for the set I had weren't completely correct.

Does it annoy anyone else that Septics call it "Legos", rather than the singular nomenclature as any sane person would?

[gazzyk1ns]

That red car (the one at the bottom of this leaflet) was my all-time favourite, for someone of my age back then to properly (i.e. so it actually functioned correctly, as opposed to just looking right) build the gearbox was no mean feat.

The gearbox and pistons on this monster were a true test of your Lego mettle.

Good job that's the "earlier black car" I was talking about then, isn't it?*

I remember the seats being awkward to get right on that.

*Winky removed, I think you're a CC person, you probably don't approve.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Pfft. If Fabuland gives you the horn, then maybe.

That is genuinely the best putdown I've ever read on the internet. And yes, anyone calling the pieces "Legos" deserves to have their bricks confiscated.

[Labian Quest]

I think 'Legos' is an americanism. The most fun I can remember having with Lego was me and my brother building pretentious symbolic houses that represented the meaning of life etc, eg, you had a set of stairs leading up to a door that opened out onto thin air, to represent the dissapointments of life.

[Dark Sky]

I think 'Legos' is an americanism.

It is.

They also pronounce "fillet" as "fil-LAY".  Crazy bastards.

I used to like Lego when I was little, but absolutely adored Technic.  Adored it.

The best bit of Technic you could possibly own was the mega complicated control centre thing.

Witness it and weep (although that's obviously the most boring thing you could make with it).  You could programme moves into your robots and things.  It was well cool.

And I had this mega huge black car which put the other two cars posted here to shame.  Eight pistons that thing had which pumped around when the wheels moved.  And the headlights popped up and everything.  Ultra cool.

Oh here it is!

That thing was massive, I'm telling you.  Bigger than your keyboard.

Ahhhh...happy days.

[gazzyk1ns]

How old are you DS? I always assumed that you were significantly older than me, but that control centre thingy was the last Lego I ever owned. I don't know why I assumed you were older than me, I think you mentioned that you couldn't torrent becuase you were at uni, not so long ago.

[Ambient Sheep]

They didn't HAVE Lego Technik when I was a kid.  I was forever frustrated by the limitations of standard Lego, trying to make three-speed gearboxes (using those cute & chunky blue, red & yellow gears) with axles that were always just that bit too short to get enough gears on.  I was dying for something like Technik.

They brought it in when I was about 14...about two or three years after I stopped playing with Lego.  I was gutted.


This post was brought to you by Sheepy's Crap & Pointless Reminiscences Inc.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

I've still got the mega black car in one piece (after the incident with the JCB I was very protective of it). It's great how it's actually built like a real car with the chassis, engine, gearbox etc being assembled seperately and then put together at the end.

[The Culture Bunker]

Lego is so shit nowdays. I remember the joy of spending hours constructing an Octan Petrol Truck and Lego Airport.

Yes, yes, yes! I had the Octan Truck and Petrol Station... my granddad drove petrol tankers so they were a particular favourite of mine.
My brother and I used to build whole streets in my bedroom. My favourite was the police station, I think you even got a little criminal to throw in the cells for a bit of lego police brutality.
The Robin Hood stuff was pretty good as well.

[mook]

All my lego got mislaid during a house move when I was about 8, I remember throwing a hissing fit that lasted a week over that. Anyways, my parents replaced it with some of this.


It was then that I realised that my parents didn't really love me. How could they, if they could let my much loved lego get stolen by removal men and then replace it with that overly complicated, hand-shredding crap.

[Jack Shaftoe]

Can someone pass me a three-er?

Ta.

[SweetRosalyn]

I always hated making things from instructions, I would just build whatever i felt like - usually houses - on the green board.  Ooh meccano was brilliant, too.  And we had this stuff that was like meccano, only it didn't use proper screws, it had these weird kiddy safe things with their own special machine for attaching and detaching them.  That was great, too.

[Jemble Fred]

I always hated making things from instructions, I would just build whatever i felt like - usually houses - on the green board.

Hear hear. As I said elsewhere, one of the main reasons for playing with Lego was for the cataclysmic noise made by sifting through enormous box of random bricks when putting together your own crazy mis-matches houses and the like. Technic Lego and specific playsets seem to be to be the absolute antithesis of what Lego is all about. To me, anyway.

[butnut]

I was never an instructions person either. I used to have loads of just the basic lego bricks that I inherited from my brothers, and I used to build things like cricket matches from them! All the players were made of white bricks (about 4 bricks per person, stickman style) and the crowd were made from whatever else was left. I think I also built a pavilion too. I did have a few 'official' lego men, but I quickly realised I didn't have anywhere near enough for my needs, hence the manic people building from bricks.

When our house got burgled, I was overjoyed that the burglars did not disturb one brick of my cricket match, which took over most of the floor of a room, and I was further delighted when the police tested my lego for fingerprints. Of course, it achieved nothing and they were never caught.

[LadyDay]

I hate Lego, there, I've said it. I spent hours as a kid building things only to find every sodding time that I was a oner or a twoer short.

Now I spend ridiculous amounts of time picking the stuff up from clinic room floors. Kids today have no idea how to build things without instructions! They just tip it all out on the floor and leave it.

With the exception of my favourite child who built me a robot with a chicken's head.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

Is that child a fan of the Adult Swim network?

[Ambient Sheep]

All my lego got mislaid during a house move when I was about 8, I remember throwing a hissing fit that lasted a week over that. Anyways, my parents replaced it with some [Fischer Technik].

It was then that I realised that my parents didn't really love me. How could they, if they could let my much loved lego get stolen by removal men and then replace it with that overly complicated, hand-shredding crap.

Oh I always wanted some of that, and they wouldn't buy me any, 'cos it's even more expensive than Lego.  (Bearing in mind that there wasn't any Lego Technik in those days.)  I take it it was shit then?

Can someone pass me a three-er?

Ta.

:D :D :D

[Ambient Sheep]

I was never an instructions person either...

Another one for never following the instructions here.  I think that's one problem with Lego these days, too many specialist parts in the kits and not enough just basic building bricks.  I loved your cricket story, especially as I didn't notice who'd posted it until afterwards...and then that gave me a right chortle.  Did you build little mock orchestras too?

For me it was all gearboxes, cranes, car-parks, and little houses that I'd gather ladybirds in (especially that year sometime in the mid-70s when we were overrun by them) and let them run around in.  Oh, and the train-set, that were great.

I hate Lego, there, I've said it.

That's 'cos you're a GIRL and you SMELL.

[Al Tha Funkee Homosapien]

There was nothing worse then when two small flat pieces got stuck together. It was always a nail shredder getting them apart.

[butnut]

Did you build little mock orchestras too?

Haha, no. Well I don't think so. I only really got really into music in my post-lego days I think. Not that I've spent much time studying recent lego 'releases' but I agree with you that more should be done to encourage the young ones to play with the basic bricks and see what they can create.

EDIT - fucked up the quotes.

[Garfield And Friends]

Lego was the first and last fan club I joined. I'm sure I've got my stitch-on "Lego Club" patch somewhere still. I remember saving up my pocket money (20p a week - kids don't know they're born these days et cetera) all year to buy stuff from the catalogue that came with the quarterly member's magazine.

Another vote for "not building from the instructions" here. Lego Technic was cool, mostly for integrating the more fancy bits into my weird creations.

I mostly created vehicles (and like Weekender) and Transformers. Another thing I used to do was to make a certain style of tank and see how resilient to damage (i.e. me chucking it down the stairs, or ramming it at full speed into a wall) it was, and repairing/reinforcing it after each test throw/ram.