Okay, I’ll admit it: I often watch a UK TV cable/satellite channel called ‘Dave’. It has endless re-runs of Mock the Week, Red Dwarf, Jack Dee, Top Gear and all sorts of programmes that might go under the general header ‘enjoyable TV for when you can’t be asked to work your brain or bother with listings’. Just switch to Dave and the chances are quite good there’s something watchable on there that won’t be a weather girl learning to tap dance or someone telling a porker that they really should be dead on that diet. 

I also enjoy spin-offs from the Top Gear presenters. Brainiac (Richard Hammond presents, or did) always entertains and the three are generally very sensible in that they pick things that fit their personalities. Clarkson has an affection for the under-celebrated British industrial heritage stuff, kid Hammond does the slightly poppy science, while James May comes across as the understated upper crust English eccentric who is wowed by physics. They are clearly bright guys who can do more than just salivate over a Ferrari or power slide a Noble. Good luck to ‘em. But there are only so many hours in a day and I don’t actually watch all that much TV, guv (honest).

I was, however, particularly intrigued by the tale of TG presenter James May’s Lego house. I have not actually seen May’s ‘Toys Stories’ (great name) but building a full-size house out of Lego sounds like a reasonably daft and oddly uplifting idea. A thousand people put some effort into it.

However, something has gone very wrong, in a typically British, brutally harsh, shot-in-the-foot and totally unforeseen unfolding cock-up sort of way. Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. They did actually complete the Lego house, but it’s a tragic tale.

You’d think the mighty Legoland would perhaps have moved mountains for a positive PR story like that – a full-size house made from little Lego bricks that the long-haired and amiable May from Top Gear is championing. But for some weird reason it was built in a vinyard in Sussex (Denbies) and they need the land back. Why on earth build it there? 

You would also think it might have been built on some sort of modular platform – think about it, a Lego construction speciality that a 5-year-old could demonstrate - so that it might, when finished, be easily transported and not cost a small fortune to relocate? Nope. If mobile, it might well have gone on to do a world tour, along with a Lego car and who knows what else.

Oh well, it has had to be torn down. What a waste. I’d like to have seen it in the flesh. And what sort of low-life would nick the Lego cat?

James May’s Lego house demolished