Pots of slime, pig heads, sexy dolls… we were only looking for a present for my son’s fourth birthday

This week I found myself in a large toy shop in a retail park off London’s North Circular. We were looking, in a pleasant panic, for a present for my son’s fourth birthday. His birthdays always hit me in an odd way, a bit like those slaps round the face they have in films to stop the woman screaming. Because: he was born at the beginning of the pandemic and, just as his early developmental stages like sitting up or eating solids worked as a marker of time having passed, of us having survived, so do his birthdays. It is four years, this means, since those tight, hot days of the first Covid lockdown, of sanitiser-cracked hands and the brisk hell of home schooling, and every time the anniversary comes round I find myself having to sit down, take a breath.

Anyway, this toy shop, good God. Do you have any ideas what toys are today? I was not prepared. There are the board games, which include your Guess Who’s and so on, but they are overwhelmed by other games called things like, Who Can Poo On Who and Fart School and Diarrhoea of a CEO and I may be misremembering titles slightly yes, but this was very much the gist, boxes with rabid cartoon characters covered in phlegm and instructions that involve, for eg, burping one’s name.

Boy discovers octopus figurine that fell from cargo ship along with 5m other Lego pieces during storm

A 13-year-old boy has discovered a “holy grail” Lego octopus which spilled into the sea from a shipping container in the 1990s.

The octopus is one of nearly 5m Lego pieces that fell into the sea in 1997 when a storm hit a cargo ship 20 miles off Land’s End, Cornwall. While 352,000 pairs of flippers, 97,500 scuba tanks, and 92,400 swords went overboard, the octopuses are considered the most prized finds as only 4,200 were onboard.

Toy company makes request after altered images – which hide suspects’ identities in line with state law – go viral

A southern California police department has been handcuffed by Lego after the toy company asked the agency to stop adding Lego heads to cover the faces of suspects in images it shares on social media.

The Murrieta police department has been using Lego heads and emojis to cover people’s faces in posts on social sites since at least early 2023. But the altered photos went viral last week after the department posted a statement about its policy, prompting several news articles and, later, the request from Lego.

Andrew Murphy is planning a long game with overseas deals. But, he says, the government needs to play ball too

We have checked out the three-metre-high T Rex in the lobby and eyed the giant Squishmallow bean bag in the corner of his office. Now Andrew Murphy is waving around a Fuggler, a soft furry toy with hideous teeth, button eyes that he believes will help The Entertainer in its quest for world domination.

Murphy, who spent 30 years at John Lewis, joined the family-owned toy retailer as chief executive last October, stepping in to assist Gary Grant , who founded the business with his wife Catherine in 1981 and remains a very lively presence as non-executive chairman.

Bricks with studs corresponding to braille numbers and letters will be available to buy from September

Lego is to begin selling bricks coded with braille to help blind and partially sighted children learn to read the touch-based alphabet.

The Danish toymaker has been providing the specialist bricks, which were tested and developed in partnership with blind organisations around the world, free of charge to a selection of schools and services catering for vision-impaired children since 2020 .

Undaunted by her American cousin’s big screen debut, the UK doll is coming out of retirement for a new generation of fans

We might be living in a Barbie world at the moment – but the doll that once represented the American Dream might need to watch her back. The great British answer to the most famous fashion doll of all time could be about to make a comeback.

Next weekend sees the 13th annual Dollycon held in Lincoln, where Sindy fans will gather to celebrate their hobby. Just four years younger than her glamorous American counterpart, Sindy still holds a place in the hearts of millions of British women who were girls in the 60s, 70s and 80s.