Someone at work showed me this ad today. I think it’s fantastic! The toys (Goldi blox) aren’t available in the UK at the moment, but I’m sure they’ll get across here soon. When they do, I intend to buy my daughter some of these. When she gets tired of them, I can play with them!

I’m not overly bothered about pink, but I do object to things been classified as ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’. I played with dolls (Sindy – nice, Barbies – always the baddie and Jem – just awesome). I also played with He-Man toys, Lego and Meccano I used to LOVE Meccano. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong toys. Just so long as you don’t tell your kids they can’t play with one sort or another.

My friend’s son wanted a pram for his 3rd birthday. When told it was a ‘girl’s toy’, he said, “But Why? Daddy pushes one”. Quite right too.

I’m a big fan of Terry Pratchett, so imagine my annoyance when he said “I’ve always thought that my fans were all geeks and scientists, but when I went to my book signings, there were a lot of attractive young ladies there.”

It didn’t seem to have occurred to him that there might be an overlap between the two groups.  This is the man who wrote Equal Rites. I wouldn’t call him particularly sexist. It was a comment that came out naturally. Which tells you something about how pervasive these views are.

So go on girls. Build stuff, knock stuff down. Take things apart. It’s fun. (Please tidy up when you’ve done though, or mummy gets very annoyed and goes all shouty).

Okay. I’m off to have a sneaky play with my daughter’s Hex bug nano set while she’s asleep. Shhh…