Tag: Make

Guest Post: 7 Reasons Why Lego Is Totally Awesome

What was your favourite toy growing up? More importantly, what is your favourite toy now? While most we grow out of most types of figures and games, there’s something about LEGO that rocks as much as an adult as it did when you were a kid. Here are seven reasons why LEGO is completely awesome.

1. The logo. The LEGO logo is awesome. It’s colourful. Bold. It promises fun straight away. It’s got that nostalgic brand appeal that seems to endure right into your adult years, like Heinz, Coca-Cola or McDonald’s. It promises simple fun with friends.

Even now, when I’m walking down a high street and see that red square with the bubble-style font it makes me smile, and brings out the kid in me. But as we’ll see, LEGO isn’t just for kids…

2. It’s for grown-up geeks as well as children. While the core audience for LEGO will always be kids, big kids love the toys just as much. While new-ish lines like Chima and Ninjago are more a children’s thing, surely the Star Wars, Super Heroes and Lord of the Rings lines have been brought in with one eye on the adult market? To see the adult fascination with LEGO, look no further than The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon showing his passion for building a LEGO Death Star.

LEGO represents the fundamentals of popular video games, too. Recently a lot of geeks have been playing Minecraft to get their sandbox world-building fix. And rightly so, because Minecraft is amazing. But LEGO has that simple pleasure of physically building things. It’s tangible. Sort of like a real-life Minecraft.

3. There’s a whole theme park dedicated to it. You know you’ve made it when you can build an entire theme park dedicated to the thing you do. LEGOLAND in Windsor is a kid’s toy Mecca; you can play with all manner of imaginative building block creations, and there are areas specifically based around Pirates, Vikings, Pharaohs and Knights. Although I’ve been to the LEGO flagship store in Copenhagen, I’ve never been to the theme Park. But I will. One day.

Of course there are lots of things you could do in the UK this summer, but a visit to the Windsor site must rank pretty high. Here’s how to check out trains to LEGOLAND in Windsor.

4. It’s really reactive to pop culture. The modern brilliance of the LEGO brand is that it’s so on top of pop culture. Whenever something relevant is happening – like the Olympics – LEGO is on-hand to recreate scenes using stop-motion. During the Games last year we had swimming races, gymnastics and Usain Bolt’s 100m win all ‘reenacted’ with the famous blocks.

Best of all, LEGO has started putting out mini-films and remakes of classic movies scenes – such as the one above of Casino Royale. I think the appeal of this is seeing ‘adult’ themes and drama acted out with children’s toys. Plus there’s the joy of seeing the simple special effects; the practical magic that makes feel like you could reach out and touch everything in the scene.

5. It’s educational. Think LEGO is all about fun? Guess again. All that time we were fiddling around with colourful bricks, we were actually learning. We were developing our creative talents and problem-solving skills. We were learning to work with others. LEGO is also great because in a world of multi-media distractions, it’s an activity that kids can use to train themselves into unitasking – learning to concentrate on one project, and focus.

LEGO has taken this concept to the max, building its own school in Denmark. Although, sadly, it’s not made of LEGO. The International School of Billund will be based on developing children’s enquiring minds, and will basically be the most incredible experience ever. What’s next? LEGO University? Best. Uni. Ever.

6. There’s always something new coming out. Unlike some toy manufacturers, LEGO isn’t prepared to rest on its laurels and cruise along churning out the same stuff year after year. They’re constantly bringing out new figures, sets and product lines. This can occasionally backfire, though; a recent study suggested that LEGO faces have been getting progressively angrier over the last 20 years!

A good example of an ongoing LEGO line that you can dip in and out of is the Minifigures Collection. Each series has about 16 different figures, and they’re wildly different – you can end up with anything from a DJ, ice skater, futuristic spaceman or mythological warrior.

7. It’s just as good as when you were a kid. Perhaps the best thing about LEGO is that it’s still as good as when you were young. It’s more than just nostalgia. While the Heinz beans and Big Macs of today don’t match up to the memories of your youth, LEGO is just as brilliant as ever.

In fact, considering everything I’ve said, I guess I should be saying that LEGO’s better than ever! It’s great because it’s a different toy to different people. It’s literally what you make of it. And it’s a toy where the only the only limit – apart from bricks – is your imagination.

About the author: Andrew Tipp is a writer, blogger and editor. He works in digital publishing, and often writes about pop culture, web trends and cool technology. Andy has been a life-long LEGO fan, and is also interested in films, graphic novels, bacon, miso soup and zombies.

July 12, 2013
7 Reasons To Personalise Your Own Christmas Cards

With just a matter of weeks to go before Christmas, why not do things differently this year? Why not get organised and avoid the mad mid-December rush? One way to avoid the inevitable queue is to use Hallmark Cards and their online personalised Christmas card service. Need convincing? Time to read on.

1. From Me, To You. Let’s begin with the obvious. A personalised card is just that. Unique in every way. Unless someone else also writes, “Dear Lucy, Merry Christmas, Love From Samuel. PS: I’ll try not to put your wooden leg on the fire this year!”. But let’s be honest, that’s highly unlikely. A personalised card means more. It means you have actually given it some thought. It means you haven’t just run down to the petrol station and bought the last copy of that magazine with free Christmas cards attached. That’s the true spirit of Christmas right there.

2. Technophobes. If your parents are from an era before technology took over the world, why not have some fun with them this Christmas? On opening a card and seeing it printed, “Dear Dad, Love From Charlotte,” your father will almost certainly ask you how your name is printed inside. You can either tell him that you went around the country in search of a card with the name Charlotte in it – which will impress him and make him feel loved no end – or you can explain that it’s an intellicard. Basically, that’s a card that uses remarkable technology to decipher the name of both sender and recipient simply by touch. And yes, an intelligence is particularly good if you’ve just bought your Dad socks. Again. He’ll ignore his present and be baffled by the card for hours.

3. Something For All. Finding suitable Christmas cards for different people gets harder and harder each year. Using Hallmark’s personalised service though, you can be sure that you are going to get the right card for the right person. There are traditional cards for those who celebrate Christmas as a religious festival, bright and colourful cards for those who use it as an excuse to party and an OK magazine card for the celebrity addict in the family. Who, incidentally, should be shut in a room by themselves for the day. Probably with Katie Price’s latest picture book.

4. Attention To Detail. This reason probably applies for the more haphazard sex, but we won’t discount women. For many people a card is the last thing they think about buying. Usually five minutes before the shops close on Christmas Eve. As a result they fly into the nearest retailer and pick up the first one they see. Then they get home and realise it says ‘sister’, ‘aunt’ or ‘my little fantasy’ instead of ‘wife’. Not good. Get online and use Hallmark’s personalised Christmas cards service. It’ll help you concentrate the mind and make sure you won’t spend most of Christmas morning trying to cover up the word ‘secretary’ with a felt tip pen.

5. Children. Toy manufacturers make a killing at Christmas. Not literally, obviously. As Herod demonstrated, that would be wrong. We mean they make a lot of money. Simply by making children want toys they don’t need. It’s genius. But very expensive for the parents. So this year don’t give them a present. Give them a card that’s better than a present. Thanks to Hallmark Cards your child can now star alongside Woody and Buzz on a Christmas card. Your children won’t want a present, they’ll want to know when Toy Story 4 is coming out. (It should be said this will only work with young children. By the time they’re 24 they’re fairly wise to that sort of thing).

6. Words and Pictures. Why is it that whenever you find a card with a half-decent design, the words inside always read, “Merry Christmas to the one I love, you keep me warm and snug on the sheepskin rug”? Similarly, you might find a verse that doesn’t make you vomit all over the card rack, but the front of the card says, “To my step-mum’s sister’s daughter’s boyfriend”. You can’t give that to your brother – unless he is your brother we suppose. It’s far better to get online, choose the design you want and write the wants you need to say.

7. This Is Us! You know those sickly yearly newsletters that you in get in Christmas cards from some families – the one that tells you Tarquin went Zambia on his gap year and set up a water buffalo sanctuary – well, a personalised card is perfect retribution. On many of the cards you can add a photo, and with so many photo editing packages out there it would seem rude not to show the smug ones exactly where you’ll be that Christmas. Nestled above an accompanying photo should be the words, “Merry Christmas From Sir Richard Branson’s Private Island!” That’ll shut them up. They’ll probably take you off their Christmas card list too. That’ll save a stamp.

October 30, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: It’s Cake!
Hello 7 Reasons readers! It’s Marc here and today, dear readers, we would like you to make a cake. This cake.

It’s Oxfam’s Easy Lime and Ginger Cheesecake, the recipe for which comes from my local Oxfam Bookshop’s brilliant blog . The recipe calls for the use of Fairtrade Stem Ginger Cookies and, when you go to your nearest Oxfam shop to buy them, you’ll be giving money to a worthwhile cause. That’s right readers, by making and eating an ethically sourced cheesecake (unless you buy mascarpone sourced from warmongering cheesemongers) you’ll be helping a good cause in an ethical way. In fact, if we can all make and eat enough cheesecake, we can probably save the world, and I’ll be trying very hard. Here’s the achingly simple recipe as published by Oxfam Books, Petergate York:

Easy Lime and Ginger Cheesecake
- Serves 4
- Prep time: 15 min
- Chilling time: 30 min
- Basically, in 45 minutes you’re in business.
Ingredients
- 200g pack of Fairtrade stem ginger cookies, crushed
- 50g butter, melted
- 500g mascarpone cheese (they usually come in 250g tubs, so get two of these)
- 40g icing sugar, sifted
- Finely grated zest and juice of two limes
Method

1. Mix together the crushed biscuits and melted butter (I also like to add a bit of sugar to my cheesecake bases to make them a bit jazzier) and press into the bottom of an 18cm (7inch) spring-sided or loose-bottomed cake tin.

2. Place the mascarpone cheese, icing sugar, lime zest and juice in a bowl and beat together. Spread this mixture over the biscuit base.

3. Put it in the fridge and chill for 30 min! That’s really it.

That’s the entire recipe. It’s basically spreading cheese on biscuits and it’s so simple that absolutelyanyone should be able to make it. And now we’re going to demonstrate that even people with no food preparation skills, knowledge or aptitude can follow this recipe. I’m going to hand you over to my writing partner: A man whose culinary education began and ended with learning how to boil water for tea: A man who – before he moved to Kent – was known as The Fulham Poisoner: A man whose litany of culinary disasters includes failing at defrosting a chicken and the hospitalisation of a flatmate*. He’s going to make a cheesecake himself and feed it to his fiancé Claire – a renowned and accomplished maker of cakes – who will judge it on appearance, texture and taste (should she survive). Here’s Jon.

“It was only when I was standing in the queue that I realised I had been well and truly duped. The idea of making a cheesecake and then eating it had originally sounded like a good idea, which is why I had agreed. Marc had, after all, said all it required was a spare half hour. In my book, that’s a fair exchange for cake. But as I stood there I realised it had already been twenty-five since I had left home and I hadn’t even purchased the ingredients. There was no way I could make a cheesecake in five minutes. Not there. And then I got to the till. Which is when I realised this idea was also going to cost me money. Just short of £5 in fact. That’s a lot to spend just to have something to write about. I couldn’t help but think if I had managed the past year and a half writing without having to pay for the privilege, why did this have to change? I trudged home.

Having spread the ingredients in front of me and read the recipe, I realised this was the exact same cheesecake that Claire makes. And she makes it very well. Brilliant. So I’ve had to walk all the way the shops, spend the best part of a fiver on ingredients and now I am challenging my future wife by making one of her specialities. Perturbed, I carried on. Twenty minutes later I was left staring at the following creation:

Making it was something of a doddle. What was not a doddle was the washing up. I don’t know how often you zest a lime, but cleaning the zesting part of the grater is quite possibly a harder job than watching England play cricket. Still, an hour later I was done. I also had lime poisoning from licking the bowl.

The next part of this project – and that is very much what it had become – was to get Claire to profer her opinion. These are the results of the Claire survey.

On Appearance: “That looks nice.”

On Texture: “It’s nice.”

On Taste: “That was very nice”.

So there we have it. I make nice cheesecakes. I am sure your Sunday just got a whole lot better with that news.”

*Which he denies.**

**Falsely.

***As Oxfam Books, Petergate York would (and actually did) tell you themselves, remember the whole point of this recipe is that it is a Fairtrade recipe. So help the global community during this Fairtrade Fortnight (and after) by buying Fairtrade goods as much as you can.
March 6, 2011
Russian Roulette Sunday: Man Maketh Mask

Hello! Marc here. Happy Yorkshire Day. Regular visitors to the site will doubtless be aware that we’re expecting 7 Reasons: The Trailer to be ready very soon. But it isn’t ready yet. I didn’t want to sit about waiting for it to arrive though – as I am reliably informed that the devil will do something with my hands – so I decided to work on something else.

You might remember that a few months ago, in an attempt to encourage ambient advertising, Jon made PDF encoded masks that readers could order via email. They weren’t a great success though. From the moment we offered them, Jon was inundated with so many requests that our server crashed, causing us to receive none of the emails. Either that, or no one ordered one, we’re not sure which.

As I was waiting for the trailer though, I had a think. I realised that I could actually use one of these masks, perhaps profitably, so I decided to make one. I sent Jon an email requesting the mask PDF files and received this prompt response:

I don’t know where they are. Why do you want them? What are you up to, Fearns?

I sent an email back suggesting that they were probably somewhere near his computer and, quite soon thereafter, I received the PDF files. Here is a guide to making a 7 Reasons mask.

Step 1 (For some reason, I seem to be accustomed to numbering things): Print mask onto good quality paper. Find a similar sized piece of cardboard. Assemble tools (scissors, glue, double-sided sticky tape, a craft or Stanley knife and elastic).

Step 2: Discover that your wife has hidden a can of spray-mount in her bureau. Get very excited. Jump up and down. Abandon the double-sided sticky tape and the boring, conventional glue.

Step 3: Spray glue onto everything in the room (including own hand). Clean up mess using J cloth. Get wife to unstick your hand from the J cloth. Receive a withering look. Stick mask to cardboard.

Step 4: Using the scissors, cut the excess material from the mask. Unstick your hand from the mask. Go and wash your hands.

Step 5: Take your Stanley or craft knife and begin to gouge Jon’s eyes out. Wince and feel queasy while you do this. Tell the Jon mask not to look.

Step 6: Return the mask’s wink.

Step 7: Be un-nerved by zombie Jon.

Step 8: Using scissors, make small holes at the side of the mask and feed the elastic through them, tying it off with knots at the front; take special care not to include your little finger in the knot, as it will take an awful lot of shaking and swearing to extricate it.

Step 9: Put on mask. You are now ready to begin your crime spree.

Step 10: Wander into the living room and say, “Hello”. Your wife, once she has finished screaming and when her breathing has normalised will say, “don’t you dare wear that to bed”. Your cat will not say anything, but will exhibit a hitherto unimagined turn of speed as he bolts through the living room door and flees in the general direction of the kitchen. You will eventually find him, some hours later, in the garden hiding behind the compost bin. After many hours you will be able to tempt him out with biscuits, though he will refuse to enter the living room for several days.

So that’s how to wreak domestic havoc by making a mask, in ten simple steps. Next week, Jon demonstrates how to bring an end to Western civilisation by baking a potato. Or the trailer will be ready (we hope).

August 1, 2010
7 Reasons You Should Build A Castle

1. The Portcullis. So much better than shutting the door on an annoying visitor. A portcullis will make sure they definitely do not come back. Providing you get the timing exactly right that is. If you don’t, they may come back with an arm hanging off.

2. The Moat. A morning swim is a popular pursuit. It gets people ready for the day and keeps them fit. Unfortunately, most people don’t get the full benefit of the exercise because whilst doing laps in the local pool they cut corners. You can’t cut corners in a moat. If you try to, you’ll smash your head open. Very few people think this is a good idea. Hopefully you are not one of them. A few laps of your castle moat in the morning and you’ll be ready to take on the world. Wet, knackered and covered in piranha bites. Sorted.

3. The Keep. I don’t know about you, but I seem to have a lot of stuff. And most of the time I don’t know where to keep it. I rather suspect a Keep will do the job nicely.

4. End The Norman Monopoly. The Normans built most of our castles apparently. I am not sure who The Normans were – I imagine a cross between The Nolan Sisters and The Osmonds – but whoever they were, they have monopolised the trade. You can’t move for Norman castles in this country. Other people need to start building castles to bring down this evil empire. People called Jonathan or Marc or Mark. Whatever your name is, go and build a castle. Unless it’s Norman. In which case run. Run very fast.

5. Earn While You Live. The great thing about castles is that they are tourist attractions. They attract millions of visitors every year. And – providing they don’t know a back entrance into the grounds – they’ll have to pay for the privilege. What better way to earn a bit of extra money when you are out at work? And just in case you are worried about people stealing stuff, don’t be. Just put a nice looking rope in front of your dining table and a sign saying ‘Do Not Touch’. You’ll be amazed how effective it is.

6. Cleaning Bills. Proper castles didn’t have carpets. Or curtains. Or windows. Probably because the cleaning bill would have been extortionate. Do the same and all the money that you have saved can be put towards a new bailey. Or a trebuchet.

7. I’m The King Of The Castle, You’re A Dirty Rascal. For the first time in history, a nursery rhyme will actually have meaning. You used to have to stand on top of the climbing frame to say this little cracker, now you can stand atop a turret and shout it down to whoever walks along your drawbridge. Until you get the postman you want that is.

April 15, 2010