The Ruffle-Necked Guy With The Head

Some of us are Renaissance scholars in this house, so when some of us saw that the latest LEGO minifig collection featured a Hamlet, well, it HAD to be found. Not by the Renaissance scholar, let me point out. No, he was, as usual, oblivious to the shifting sands of Popular Culture. It remained to me to shift them his way, as usual. So I did.

Some of us had to take a few Action Shots before it could go to the office, however. We cherish our amusing moments here at Greenridge Chronicles, especially with the dark days of winter fast approaching. Which reminds me, our Renaissance scholar has ONE grain of sand from the cultural tide stuck on the tip of his tongue: We've been reminded that Winter Is Coming for the past, oh, four billion months. SUCH a wit, that man.

But that's another reference. And another story.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, err, Hogwarts Castle...

"Alas, poor Voldemort! I knew him well."


As for the title of this post? Well, that is a direct quote from a kid I shared the aisle with at our local London Drugs, as we both searched through the mini-fig box. He was looking for a man with a bowler hat. I was looking for Hamlet. "That ruffle-necked guy?" he said, "the one with the head?" "Yes," I said, "the ruffle-necked guy." "My dad says it's Shakespeare," he told me very matter of factly. "Actually," I replied, "it's a character from a play Shakespeare wrote - this guy is named Hamlet." 

"Weird name," said my friend. 

And yes, we DO stand there for close to an hour sometimes, feeling those tiny LEGO packages. The clerks are used to us by now. I pride myself on my ability to differentiate a bowler hat from the Santa hat from the girl's hair. I tell Dominic that I can tell the DJ guy's disc from the bowler-hat man's newspaper but I can't really. Just don't tell him that.