Whether this is down to a superb publicity
machine, or just lazy journalism is a moot point, and my own suspicion is that
it's a combination of the two, in that Lego
like to trade on their cuddly-wuddly image of playful loveliness (when I [and
the world's IP courts] think they are ruthless pirates), while for lazy journalists
the rule-of-laziness is 'Everybody loves Lego
- run the story'!
But it does mean that from time to time we
will have one of these posts . . .
All since last October bar the big two-page
spread which was from an early issue of the European
back in November 2016. I have been collecting 'Toys in the media' stories
on-and-off since the mid-1990's, of which Lego
always makes-up a fair whack and I now have 3 lever-arch box-files full of Lego stuff!
I won't bore you with all the details, but
with a few images to clear from Picasa, we will skim-over some of the recent
stories. And starting with the European
piece, it was a really sycophantic filler-piece designed to get the curious (or
non-remainers) to buy the new pro-Europe monthly broadsheet - although, in its
defence, it did mention Hilery Page, not all the court stuff, but he did get a
mention!
Toys
in the media - pastel bricks in
an
advert for CDO's (my thought exactly!)
Housing
Lego announced last November the opening of a house to host Air-bnb guests; unlike James May's
idiot house which discovered the limitations of the laws of physics on large Lego constructions (and started cracking
before it was finished), this house is a normal brick/concrete/timber and tile
construction, filled with lots of Lego
stuff - furniture, a cat &etc...
Branding
In March Lego was found to be the UK's most recognised brands, beating such
luminaries are Gillette and Apple!
Model Events
In July a Lego model of a cinema was included in a UK Film pop-up event,
reportedly built from 25,000 bricks, I assume it's a copy (simplified?) of one
of the Legoland attraction models?
The same month Raymond Wirick (almost a Star Wars name!) produced a large
sand-sculpture for the actual Legoland
theme park at Windsor. Back in March Windsor announced the completion of a new
model for the summer, a quite accurate-looking Sydney Opera House.
Back in April the shopping precinct at
Basingrad (Festival Place) was decorated with 20 large-scale (life-size?)
animals made of Lego, there is more
and more of this type of thing, and the companies behind them - needing to
re-coop their investment (in tens of thousands of Lego bricks) will no doubt hawk them round all sorts of likely
venues, so they - or something like them - will be near you at some point! The
local paper showed an alligator and the most heavenly snow-leopard cub with
fat, fluffy tail, standing on a snow-covered rock-ledge
Further-back; in October 2017, I missed a Farnham and District Model Railway Club
exhibition in Aldershot, at which a Lego
railway (grey-rail type) took center-stage in the press-release.
In Space No One Can Hear You Brick-Click!
All the national papers seem to have found
room for a news story on the Space Suttle model with female mini-figures of Mae
Jemison and Sally Ride (astronauts), Margaret Hamilton (NASA scientist) and
Nancy Grace Roman (Astronomer). The set, available on-line back in November was
part of a programme of crowd-sourced suggestions for sets, and was put-forward
by Maia Weinstock (a science writer), who garnered 10,000 votes for her idea.
Wizardry
While I also seem to have missed another story
last October! Merlin (who own/manage
the theme-parks announced the opening of a new park in New York State (not
city, it'll be 60-clicks outside the city), throwing $350m (£264-million quid)
at the project in Goshen, Orange County.
Fake News
Having in the past pointed-out the
inordinate number of Lego, Lego-related or Lego-themed stories in the 'i'
newspaper, I've noticed recently that the Metro
is very good at putting new Lego sets
in their lust lists, wants lists, tech-gadget lists, what's new this weekend lists &etc
. . . ad infinitum. They have recently covered a Star Wars A-Wing (£169.99p - on-line!), and a US-style
Downtown Diner for £129.99p.
Superman came to stay in
June
(Charity
shop mixed-bag)
Losses
The best news (if you hate Lego) came in March with a
profits fall which Lego told the BBC,
was due to their having made too-many bricks? Revenues were down 8%, while
operating profit dropped 17%. Personally I celebrate every rival set I see, and
there are more and more of them.
As an aside - not a recent news story - I
believe that the recent developments with Lego,
especially their finally following Mega
Bloks to more colours has diluted the Lego
brand far more than losing court-cases to their rivals, and the QC on some of
the new colours is not as stringent as it used to be on the core-five, further
muddying the brands identity and making it easier for Lego fans (and parents) to accept the [always cheaper] substitutes.
Lego Crimbo
Last December saw a festive story in the Metro (and other papers - I'm sure) in
which they cheekily (and self-reverentially?) managed to include the phrase
'click bait'! Catherine Weightman and Mike Addis had built a large 'Victorian'
dolls house out of Lego; they do a Lego display every Christmas; and this
was their biggest to date. It was claimed to have 15-rooms, but no matter how I
counted them, I could get no less than 18?
Low Blow
Harking back to both the other days Toys Я Us post (location) and a previous story
of stolen gnomes; someone stole the head of a large 3-foot Lego figurine which was outside the Crocodile Toy Shop in Cirencester, Gloucestershire and beat him
about a bit!
However after a campaign on local social-media
sites and Faceplant, the head was returned
with a "Sorry was very drunk xx"
message attached. The Lego mechanic
(whispers . . . "I think he's Duplo"!) was repaired and his hands replaced!
He's
been converted [back] from a key-ring
Finally
The most recent Lego story seen by me was in the 'i' last Thursday; a two-page spread on the Lego digital-robotics
designers Eric Hansen and Gaute Munch. It was a genuinely-interesting look at
the educational benefits of the Mindstorms
range - programmable, interactive, USB-supported, electronic construction-sets
and add-ons.
It covered other products too like Raspberry Pi, Minecraft and summer activities for kids such as the International Hour of Code, local coding
clubs (www.codeclub.org.uk) and Fire Tech
summer-camps (firetechcamp.com).
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