Forbidden Lego

A book showing children how to make guns out of LEGO is causing parents to have fits as it climbs the list of must-have Christmas presents. Forbidden Lego, written by two former employees of the Danish plastic-brick firm, Ulrik Pilegaard and Mike Dooley, was released back in August and is a big hit in the US, promising you'll learn to create working models that LEGO would never endorse.

A Daily Telegraph review describes the tome "as the Anarchist Cookbook of the nursery", (we're not sure if that's a description the reviewer came up with) which is a bit hysterical to say the least. There certainly isn't a guide to making an atomic bomb made from LEGO which one parent railed against, but that hasn't stopped the often sensationalist Daily Mail from claiming "Lego is set to turn slightly more sinister with the launch of an unofficial book that teaches children how to make weapons out of the iconic plastic bricks."

(The book's publisher, No Starch Press, reveals the plans included are for a toy gun that shoots LEGO plates, a candy catapult (which admittedly could be reconfigured to shoot something else), a high voltage LEGO vehicle, a continuous-fire ping-pong ball launcher, and "other useless but incredibly fun inventions").

In reality there are only a few models detailed in the book, but the plans are pretty comprehensive, and I'd hope get you thinking about exactly what is possible when it comes to using LEGO - which would be better than idling away in front of the TV, surely. And, despite the concerns of the Mail, the paper also admits the book's launch has seen a huge surge in LEGO sales.