One advantage of the way in which we are implementing (John) and documenting (yours truly) this build as a 30-day extravaganza is that we get to savor the way in which our (John’s) LEGO Ultimate A-Wing Starfighter model from Star Wars: Return of the Jedi grows and evolves.

Accompanying today’s photo was a message from John in which he spake as follows: “And as night follows day, the majority of the final wing is on, with just a small part remaining to complete the front. I have no idea where we’re going next construction-wise, which all adds to tomorrow’s excitement.”

John went on to say, “On unrelated Star Wars news, today I received the figure of Ratts Tyerell who featured in the pod racing section of the film The Phantom Menace. Another little task I’ve given myself is to collect all the figures and vehicles from that film. Also, with today being the Fourth of May, I shall be shortly settling down to watch the new Star Wars cartoon series The Bad Batch. Well, it is Star Wars day after all.”

It is indeed Star Wars Day — May the Forth be with you (and with us all, each and everyone)!

Meanwhile, in our Day 21 build blog, we noted that although we have 42 phonemes (perceptually distinct units of sound) in spoken English, we currently have only 26 letters. We also posed the question: “If you were told you could add an extra letter to the modern English alphabet, what would that letter be?”

Well, one suggestion is to bring back “Thorn” or “þorn” (Þ, þ), which was/is a letter corresponding to the ‘th’ sound in the Old English, Gothic, Old Norse, Old Swedish, and modern Icelandic alphabets, as well as some dialects of Middle English.

Quite apart from anything else, it would be “eþpeþially uþeful to indicate þomeone þpeaking wiþ a liþp,” as it were.

As an aside, this reminds me of Carpe Jugulum (Latin for “seize the throat”), which is the twenty-third novel in the Discworld series by the late, great Terry Pratchett. In this tale, Count Magpyr and his family of vampires from Überwald have a servant called Igor. The Magpyrs hate Igor and his “more gothic than thou” attitude as he tries to keep the old ways alive because he prefers “tradithionalitht” methods of Vampirism (all Igors have a lisp on the Discworld, although some only have it when they remember).

Returning to the A-Wing Starfighter, we can only wonder what tomorrow’s build will bring…