Fatherhood²: An Open Letter to Lego – You CAN Choose Your Friends

Dear Lego

I’m writing you this letter because I’m worried about you. I think you might be hanging around with the wrong people, and I’m concerned that nobody else is telling you this – or at least getting through to you.

Let me start off by saying this: I love you, Lego. We go back decades – I’ve loved you for nearly 30 years (possibly longer, though I remember having a brief dalliance with Duplo before we met) and I still love you today.

There are signs of our love all over my house – models on the shelves, boxes in the corner, figures on nearly every surface. I have you on my desk at work, you featured on our family Christmas card last year – heck, I’ve even (nearly) been on TV thanks to you.

It’s because of this love that I feel comfortable being brutally honest with you.

You’re hanging around with the wrong people – and I think you know it. Earlier this year, LOTS of my friends (and I) wrote to you to tell you that your friendship with Shell Oil was a concern to us – though you don’t seem to be listening on that one, I’m sad to say.

But this week I’ve been reminded of another toxic friendship you’ve made in recent years – those scum-bags at the Daily Mail.

I, along with many other right-minded people I know, utterly HATE the Daily Mail. As a newspaper, they stand for everything that I think is wrong with Britain – xenophobia, sensationalism, privacy-invasions and trashy celebrity obsessions. I won’t go on about it too much, but this video illustrates my feelings for the Daily Mail quite nicely:

Sadly, for the past year or so, you and the Daily Mail seem to have become thick as thieves. Every time you decide to do a ‘Free Lego’ promotion, you do it with the Daily Mail – and it’s driving me to distraction. This week alone, I’ve bought over a dozen copies (after all, the kids won’t be satisfied with sharing – and neither will I). Worse still, because of my feelings about the DM, every single one has ended up in the recycling bin.

I have literally no idea why you’ve become so friendly with them – As well as loving you, I’ve held you in the highest regard for many, many years. The reason I don’t mind spending so much of my hard-earned cash on you is because you stand for so many of the values that I do – creativity, logical thinking, simple pleasures, architectural beauty. Not to mention your striving for corporate responsibility and your longevity.

The Daily Mail stands for none of these things. Heck – during the war they supported the Nazis! These aren’t nice people – so why do you insist on hanging around with them so often? I can’t see ANY benefit to you at all – it can’t be a need for their readership, as other papers have bigger circulation. It can’t be their moral values. It certainly isn’t the price. So why do you persist in sticking with them?

We’re not quite at ‘ultimatum’ stage yet – I’m not going to threaten to break up with you, and I think you know that. But as somebody who really loves you, I’d REALLY like you to reconsider some of your friendships…

Yours sincerely,

Henry Elliss