Extending your childhood - one brick at a time

ANYONE who knows me well enough knows that I love Lego. Like Ed Sheeran, adulthood has not only not stopped me from building these sets, I feel it has bestowed on me the licence - and the purchasing power - to assemble grander and grander ones.

I'm not talking about the sets your eight-year-old is building; oh no, these are collections worthy of the imagination and dexterity of us fully overgrown children.

I'm talking about Lego's Creator Expert range. For those aged 16+. Sets which comprise pieces that number in the thousands, take up many glorious man-hours to assemble, and are worthy of display in the most prominent places in your home (well, sometimes).

These are the construction dreams given free rein in The Lego Movie (2014): buildings modelled on some of the world's most praiseworthy structures; vehicles based on iconic or luxury forms of transport; and objects fashioned after the most geek-worthy fantasies.

Which brings me to English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran. When asked on The Graham Norton Show what he splurged on when he received his first big pay cheque, Mr Sheeran said that instead of buying a car or house like most other celebrities, he bought Lego Creator Expert sets. Because he had dreamt of owning them as a child. "I once went on a date, brought a Lego set with me and, while we were chatting, I made the set and then left," he added.

A man after my own heart. At home, my family knows that these sets are strictly off-limits to them. They know better than to touch them or, God forbid, attempt to build them.

These sets have attained cult status with me because they achieve what few products do: they transport me back into my childhood, but a childhood of much greater sophistication and creativity than I ever knew; they challenge my imagination, ingenuity and artistry so completely and yet so thoroughly in a way that engenders no distress but only great joy; and they are a form of escapism that one could argue begets productivity and industry and hence, little guilt.

For the more mercenary among you, let me just say that rare and discontinued Lego sets appreciate greatly in value over time, and so are a worthwhile investment. Here's a guide to some of the sets the uninitiated could start out with:

The Modular Buildings come with a stunning amount of detail, both inside and out, and the child within you will thrill at imagining what each room, each floor, and each building would be like to live in. As the series name suggests, the creations are modular, so they all fit together. You can buy the entire range to build a whole street or town of such establishments - and film your own Lego movie.

Lego Creator Expert and Star Wars sets - in particular the hard-to-find ones - can be purchased from Lego's online store (shop.lego.com), where you can also buy replacement parts; retired sets can be found on Amazon.com or eBay.com.