On building a new Royal Yacht for Her Majesty the Queen's Diamond Jubilee

In the wake of government minister Michael Gove's proposal to build a new Royal Yacht for Her Majesty the Queen to mark the Diamond Jubilee comes a certain amount of chest thumping regarding the cost. "Why," people ask, "Should the taxpayer be footing the £60m bill at a time when we are all tightening our belts in the face of unprecedented cuts to public services etc etc drone drone?

"Also,come to think of it, Her Maj isn't exactly short of a few bob herself, and let's face up to the fact that she hasn't exactly missed the old Britannia since it was laid up all those years ago, despite having to find a new location for a secret base for her SPECTRE operations.

"Why should we pay for it? Eh? EH?"

But these Moaning Minnies - or, as we like to call them, "TRAITORS" - are missing the point. We should be building a really really big ship for our head of state, because building really really big ships is what made this country great in the first place. That, and killing loads of foreign Johnnies who complained that they were there first with a civilisation going back thousands of years, and didn't need "civilising", thank you.

Also, we don't want the Queen to be sad and run amok with a Klingon bat'leth and have us all killed, or something

Build a ship we CAN and MUST do, before handing it over to a privileged elite to use as a play-thing. That is - you must realise - the BRITISH WAY.

Of course, we haven't got £60m to spare, but that is just the starting price, because nothing we ever build as a nation comes out on time and on budget these days. So, we must think of other ways to carry this project forward. And that's where one of my Facebook chums comes in. Build the ship we must - but out of good stout Danish British LEGO, supervised by a good, stout James May who has a proven track record in this sort of thing.

The trouble being that brand new Lego blocks are - along with gold and the mouthwash they use at private dental practices - among the most expensive substances in the world, and Gove's projected £60m would be small beer if the new Royal Yacht were put together out of the contents of a Toys R Us warehouse. And that's where YOU come in, reader.

If every citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland were to donate one Lego brick each, we'd have well over 60m bricks and be well on the way to building our yacht. If every loyal citizen in the fifty-five nations comprising the British Commonwealth were also to chip in, we'd have a massive 2.1bn bricks, most of which fitting together in some sort of sense. It would be the work of mere days for TV's James May and a band of willing Scouts and Guides to build Her Majesty a new plastic palace which would be the envy of the civilised world.

Granted, some of these bricks may have been extracted from the orifices of small children, down the toilet or in the recent stools of a beloved dead dog. We will accept these bricks too (if suitably marked), and they will be reserved for the yacht's grand banqueting hall.

Get looking NOW, people! We can make this thing happen* and the Queen won't be sad, run amok with a Klingon bat'leth and have us all killed, or something.

Please send your bricks to:

James May
The "You Don't Know About It Yet But You're Building The Queen A New Royal Yacht Out Of Lego And We're Thinking Of Calling It HMS Pippa Middleton's Rear End Or Bottom" Project
Top Gear
London

Who says the internet is nothing but a talking shop? Look at us - getting things DONE**.

*If we leave it to other people to make this thing happen
**If we leave it to other people to get things done