Pogue,

OK, so I’ve spent more than three hours assembling pieces that have no right to exist in a, or all, universes. More, what sort of troubled people do Lego employ? Who spends their working day deconstructing a perfectly good motorcycle, a Harley Davidson Fatboy no less, to enable them to turn it into a collection of plastic bricks? As I said, that’s some troubled people. A whole study for a ground breaking psychology school here. It needs doing. These people could be dangerous.

Well, rant aside, as I said I spent three hours, music soothing my frayed nerves as I built section one. Then, finished or so I thought. Two cylinders, pistons pumping. Sweet…right up to the point I noticed there were about twenty pieces left on the tray. Have you ever had an OMG moment? Well, if you’d been here you could have seen what one looks like. There was a lot of deep breathing while I centred myself and searched for that Zen place of calm. Some strange humming noises as I aligned with the Universe.

When I regained my composure I started work, back, from page 48 of the instructions trying to see if there was an instruction I had missed. There on page 41 was a small section I had skipped and eight pieces could be used. Great. Well no. To fit the eight errant pieces in situ I would have to deconstruct the assembly a full seven stages. If putting Lego together in an orderly fashion is challenging you really need to try to deconstruct in an orderly manner.

Eventually I arrived back on page 50, but I still had twelve random pieces. OK, me thinks, I’ll start at page 1 and go right through picking out the pieces every time one appeared to be sure I had used it. An hour later, I still had twelve random pieces left. I enlisted some help and the check was performed, AGAIN! Still twelve pieces left. At the suggestion of my helper I put them aside.

Later in the day I spoke to a friend on the phone. He’s like a Lego Allstar. He builds Lego, lottsa Lego. I know, he must be strange, but he told me about the troubled people in Lego Central. Apparently they now put extra pieces in the bags, the pieces that people are most likely to lose because, people drop the small piece, or cats eat them (so he told me) and some of the more careless ones even break pieces.

Did you know this?

I have always respected how you adhere to the truth but I must tell you if ever there was a time to depart from this it is now. Even if you knew this I would encourage you to write back “NO”. Or if conscience won’t permit you doing this, then just look blank or even pretend the postman didn’t deliver this. Put it down to the virus.

Anyway, I’ve always been a finisher so I will now open Bag two, all four of them!

Wic.