Fairytales never seem to obey the laws of reality, and the tales depicted in James Christensen’s ‘Fairytales’ jigsaw are no exception. In real life, the three bears wouldn’t have had long to wait to find out who’d been eating their porridge and who’d been sleeping in their beds: the bears’ house in Christensen’s picture is only a stone’s — or, if you prefer, a breadcrumb’s — throw from the candy cottage where Hansel and Gretel have just arrived. Surely the two children must have witnessed the dastardly intruder, Goldilocks? Failing that, maybe Rapunzel saw something from her high tower. I can only assume that the fairytale blondes are sticking together on this one and that Rapunzel is refusing to give evidence against the flaxen-haired burglaress.

Talking of sticking together, what about that conga line behind the man with the golden goose? Do you think that, if this were all real, none of them would have raised the alarm about that nasty looking wolf who’s pestering Little Red Riding Hood? The seven vertically challenged persons aren’t far away either; could they not have overpowered Wolfy? Of course they could!

That’s the problem with fairy tales, you see. They all have quite similar plots, with lots of spinning wheels, brooms and princesses in them; but none of the characters ever breaks out of one story and into another. We need to mix them up a bit and see the consequences.

We already know the consequences of careless handling, though: pieces go missing! The down side of Fairytales was that one piece had gone astray before the puzzle reached us; down the back of someone’s sofa, I’ll wager. The upside, however, is that we think the missing bit — exactly where the door to the candy cottage would have been — might actually indicate a secret entrance into Fairyland. All we need to do is find something to drink that will shrink us to the right size and we can go and find out.

Ah. Snag! Guess who dismantled and reboxed the puzzle shortly before lunchtime.

(Oops!)