Becks and his Disney castle
PICTURE the scene. Little Harper Beckham’s face lights up as she tears the paper off a huge box, a present – perhaps for her recent birthday – from her loving dad David. It’s the Lego Disney castle! No batteries needed but 4,080 teeny pieces. It costs more than four hundred quid.
But what a wonderful thing it is: spires, turrets, stiff little Lego pennants made to look as though they’re fluttering in the fairyland breeze, crenellations, a drawbridge and buttresses. It has “accessible rooms” with mosaic floors, chandeliers, suits of armour, heraldic shields, a chest with a book of spells, a spinning wheel and “a glass slipper element”.
It is almost as deluxe as life chez Beckham.
The only drawback is that the blurb advises that it is an “age-appropriate building experience for ages 16 and over”. And Harper is six. David, however, is 42, which makes him the optimum age for commandeering his children’s toys and playing with them himself.
He posted pictures of himself on Instagram settling down on a sunlounger with an Emporio Armani head rest. “Page 1 of the Disney castle, 4,000 pieces, 490 pages of instructions, I look confused but I’m so excited,” says the caption. Six days later he posed again at 1am with the completed castle looking even more pleased with himself than he did when he scored that World Cup qualifying goal against Greece in 2002.
Some killjoys will say that the essence of Lego is that the child builds the thing not the adult. And they have a point. But as a parent there comes a moment when you look at your offspring’s chubby little fingers fiddle-faddling with a couple of unyielding pieces of plastic and the temptation to take over is irresistible because you know you can do it so much better and quicker. And anyway you want to. And their toys – the lucky little blighters – are far superior to any that you ever had.
THERE was the Scalextric Christmas when my husband and father-in-law took over the setting up of the racetrack with the excuse of “giving a hand” to the two little boys who hung around on the sidelines hoping they would get a chance to play with their own present.
And you never know if children will be as enthralled as you are with some extravagantly expensive gift. You pat yourself on the back for providing them with an educational toy but secretly you’re quite pleased that they’d rather go off and sprawl in front of a video game so that you can have it all to yourself.