In praise of pink Lego

There aren’t many toy companies that could make headlines in the business press merely by expanding their London offices — ‘Lego blocks out Brexit concerns’ — but Lego is not like other toy companies. Last week it was named the world’s most powerful brand by the consultancy Brand Finance; this week the second Lego movie is opening in cinemas; the University of Cambridge will shortly be appointing its first Lego professor of play.

For a company that, a decade ago, was losing $1 million a day, this is a remarkable reconstruction. But Lego has spent those ten years regaining ‘belief in the brick’, according to its new British chief executive, Bali Padda: moving away from the instant gratification of computer-game-influenced, dumbed-down sets where most of the assembly work was done before the box was opened, and back to the basic bricks that are the reason Lego is loved by children. And, just as much, by parents.

Apart from the fact that these are toys that we all played with (and current sets are still compatible with the ones we used), they seem more wholesome than other toys. One of Lego’s senior directors refers to them — in a phrase which they’re not quite brave enough to use as an advertising slogan — as ‘toys with vitamins in’. They develop motor skills and patience. They teach children to follow a plan, or, more importantly, to not follow a plan. They allow children to be creative without paint on furniture or glitter up nostrils. There’s no more room on the fridge, but throwing a painting away seems heartless; a Lego house can be admired, safe in the knowledge that it will soon be cannibalised to make a fire station.

Girls v boys: Lego Friends girls and ‘regular’ boys minifigures

Even Lego’s efficacy as a caltrop (a word which, since mechanised cavalry made military caltrops obsolete, seems now to be used only in relation to Lego bricks and British three-pin plugs) is actually a point in its favour: there aren’t many toys that have come out the better of an encounter with my foot.