Basket.

Let's see if I can make this latest revival stick.

Anyway it's midterm hell at the moment, with 5 in 2 weeks and 4 left to go. Is this better than the 5 essays due in 2 weeks which I had last time round? I can't decide. I think it's a safe bet that whatever I get, the other alternative is always better.

To take my mind off such, and other even less clear-cut things, I have re-discovered the atavistic joy of creation. No, I do not sculpt or bake or mould or any such thing that actually requires a fair degree of proficiency and training. Instead, I build objects out of Lego.

Breathtaking in its simplicity, Lego is one of the most ingenious and (rightly) successful toys ever invented. Essentially all Lego bricks are pieces of plastic with varying numbers of studs in them. Yet such a simple concept has been able to gift the world some of its most intricate and unique creations, and more importantly, millions of children over decades and decades a memorable childhood literally building entire realms of their own.

My brother and I were two of those children, and as a consequence our home is packed with an inordinate amount of Lego. I cannot be sure just exactly how much there is, but the loose bricks alone probably number in the thousands and we guess the number of Lego minifigs to be around 400-500. When I was younger, nothing better occupied my attention. For a normally hyperactive child (you better believe I was), to be kept quiet for hours on end by anything was quite miraculous in itself. Throughout adolescence I still got and enjoyed the occasional set. Of course, the older I got the more I found other interests, but I still dug out bricks for the occasional impromptu creation.

I hadn't for a long while prior to this weekend, but I did, and now I feel the richer for it. There is no feeling like the sense of satisfaction derived from turning a pile of odds-and-ends bricks into a coherent object. The best part? Literally anybody can put Lego bricks together, and literally anything can come out of Lego. I don't believe anything else toes the line between simplicity and complexity quite so well.