Wednesday, 27 July 2011

The End of an Era

A passion for LEGO is generally a joyous thing, but it does have a couple of obvious downsides. One is the ever-present spectre of bankruptcy as more and more purchases are made and ever more cash pours into the Billund money pit. The other is the ongoing quest for places to store and display all the LEGO purchases.

I'm not sure how others deal with the space issue; for me it's a constant problem, and one that I've blogged about in the past. Right now it's a case of keeping most of my sets packed up in their boxes, while displaying a limited number of constructed models in strategic locations around the house. These locations are, I regret, highly regulated in my household - the LEGO equivalent of the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. That having been said, I recently won a major strategic victory, persuading she-who-must-be-obeyed that it would be a good idea to display Tower Bridge in a communal location (i.e. our hallway). Previously only the Winter Toy Shop and the Winter Village Bakery were allowed in there. The benchmark appears to be aesthetic beauty. Or more accurately, my wife's definition of aesthetic beauty. Hence my Star Wars UCS sets are banned from communal locations, but Tower Bridge, the Toy Shop and the Bakery are deemed less of an eyesore and therefore grudgingly accepted. So a note to LEGO : please make the Star Wars UCS models less grey and angular in future. Make them pink, maybe. Or maybe not....

Winter Village Bakery and Toyshop - aesthetically pleasing, apparently.
Anyway, on 7th March last year I filled one of the designated display locations with a model. Not any model, however - it was Set 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon, the biggest, baddest Star Wars set ever. This collossus ended up on my chest of drawers in the bedroom (below) as there was, to be frank, nowhere else big enough to accomodate its prodigious bulk apart from the floor (not an option) or the dining room table (definitely not an option). And it's been a sore point ever since, my wife bemoaning the fact that it's pretty much the last thing she sees when going to bed at night, and then the first thing that she sees when she wakes in the morning. I of course can't see what's wrong with that at all, but there's no accounting for taste.....


The Falcon was briefly displaced from its lofty perch when we moved house last year, being carried carefully and gingerly in the boot (UK)/trunk (US) of a car from the old house to the new prior to regaining its position on top of the same chest of drawers in the new house, where it has remained until now.

But not for much longer. I've taken the painful decision that regardless of how many parsecs she takes to complete the Kessel run, it's time for Han Solo's "fastest hunk of junk in the Galaxy" to be decommissioned, and for the Fourth Plinth to be liberated in order that another model can have a taste of the limelight.

Any thoughts on what would be a fitting replacement for the Falcon ? I'm thinking 10221 Super Star Destroyer, but I'm open to suggestions.....

9 comments:

  1. I'm sure you wife would love if 10179 UCS Millennium Falcon was replaced by the most recent UCS Death Star ;)

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  2. Don't joke - I built Death Star II for the recent National Space Centre exhibition and I'm currently trying to figure out where to display it, so it may yet end up on top of the bedroom drawers if I can't find anywhere else to put it !

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  3. Anonymous28/7/11

    Your poor wife. I must admit, I'm not sure I'd want the Star Wars UCS models displayed in a prominent location either - they're just too big, and grey, and angular, and, well, masculine...

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  4. That's just sad...but these large models are really not meant to be displayed in any avarage household. Unless you can get a bigger house, it might be best to stay with smaller sets.

    Also, would it be possible to build some kind of shelf-system, just for LEGO? That's what I do. I have one shelf-system dedicated to LEGO, it is in my room, and whatever fits there fits there. Everything else is stored in my LEGO closet.

    This way I know what space I can work with, and I'm not taking over the rest of the house.

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  5. ^ I'm afraid that while I do have a respectably-sized LEGO room, it's pretty much full to the brim now; the shelves are chock full of sets already and so there's no room for display models in there.

    And as for a bigger house, I already tried that, but it was clearly only a temporary solution....!

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  6. Well i say your wife should see you first and last thing each day and should be greatfull that you don't have more on display, obviously if Helen reads this i never said that. as for what to replace it with, how about a UCS AT-AT?

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  7. ^ UCS AT-AT would be great - I'm still waiting for you to name your price !

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  8. i'll help you build one?

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  9. ^ OK, let's do this. You have mail.......

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