My daughter was given a few Noddy board books recently. They taste nice, apparently, but they do also have pretty pictures. While looking at these, it becomes apparent that many of the Toyland buildings are impractical. I’m not usually one with much of an architectural opinion, but I feel compelled to comment.
First up is Noddy’s house, which is built solely with toy building blocks, and lacking any form of mortar. Anyone with any experience of toy building blocks will know they spend most of their time toppling to the ground – a strong wind and Noddy’s house would fall apart.
But second, and much worse than that is Big Ears’ house, built inside a very chunky mushroom. It looks like a nice place to live, but building a home in a mushroom would have one serious consequence: it would be a very short-term let. You’d have a few days, at best, before your roof curled up and shrivelled away. And seriously, why fill the mushroom stem with a staircase? I mean, you could have had an external spiral staircase, and used the stem as a downstairs loo with a cupboard for storage space.
Those Toyland designers need to watch Grand Designs.
Hmm? Alex who? Seems you’ve overlooked the fact that the audience of these books don’t need to know the intricacies of design, but rather delight in the quality of the stories. Perhaps you should check your smart mouth at the door before you make such ridiculous comments!
Best comment ever, thank you!
Alex, I made similar points to a letting agent recently, who had neglected to mention that the cottage I would be viewing was based within a fungus. My concerns regarding the texture of the walls and the odour that permeated the residence were batted away with smooth-tongued flim flam and poppycock. Then he departed on his souped-up, alloy-wheeled, bright yellow trike, while I literally choked on his dust.
These people.
Ha! The problems associated with renting mushrooms! I don’t know
Next thing you’ll be saying is that Santa ‘is too fat to carry all those presents’ or the Easter Bunny just isn’t ‘ethically possible’. PC gone mad!! You’ve ruined my life!!!!
Mr Alex, your smart mouth is going to get you in trouble one of these days. WITH ALL THE LITTLE PEOPLE. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Such ridiculous comments, indeed!
I am, quite frankly, appalled.
Appalled, I tell you.
I don’t know. I mean, I just don’t think there’s mushroom in there for furniture…
That Big Ears is a fungi though. Parties at his house are rockin’.
Boris, I can only apologise.
Sarah, I like gnomes, and some of them are my best friends, but really, they should think more about the planning of their mushrooms.
Lauren, there are no puns allowed on this blog. Puns are punishable by gnome invasion!
If you watch Grand Designs, particularly the first few seasons, you will find that the term “Noddy house” is regularly used as an insult [e.g. S1 Ep7], often by the presenter Kevin McCloud, to some specific type of house which is never specified.
That’s actually why I ended up here; I like insults but I’d like to know exactly when/how to use it. I’ve still not found what the disparaged “noddy house” exactly is or is not (is it prefab houses? boxy houses? traditional houses?); e.g. “an 80s style noddy house” is mentioned that would fit in an Islington (London N1) conservation zone would definitely not be boxy or prefab. GRRR>>
Hey Marvin, thanks for stopping by. Noddy House is a great insult to a building, which I can only imagine is used because a place has been built by toys, or people ill-suited to building! Also Noddy’s place has plenty of embellishments, but from what I can tell, no mortar between the bricks.
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