Warning for arachnophobes - and everyone else

They seem to have thing about spiders at Legoland. If I'd known that, I wouldn't have hankered after going there all these years. I especially wouldn't have hankered after going there if I'd known how lame it was. Don't get me wrong: I'm a Lego fan from way back, I've done my time with the bricks, I've knelt on my share of their sharp corners. I still think they're a wonderful toy and will conscientiously move our boxes of bricks to our new house, unable to get rid of them.

When I heard about the original Legoland's construction in Denmark, I really wanted to go there then, and even wondered how I could manage it when I was in Copenhagen not long ago. By then the one here in England had been built near Windsor, but still I never managed to get there. Until today, when we had some stray time to fill in the vicinity of Heathrow. And what a let-down it turned out to be!

Tame, tired, unimaginative, it's a low-key theme park for little kids that no way, no how measures up to expectations refined by Disneyland. It's faded, weathered, a bit battered, and very ordinary. And also, quite astonishingly expensive. Don't go. Instead, buy yourself a new set and stay at home to play with the real thing. So disappointing. I could hardly bear it.