When I was a kid, my favorite toys were Tonka Trucks. Like any red-blooded American boy, I loved everything about construction work: loud noises, big machines, getting dirty. I'd spend hours in the sandbox playing with my toy cranes, backhoes, bulldozers and dump trucks.  But like most kids, I outgrew it and did NOT pursue a career in construction. British kids are the same, except for one small difference: they never outgrow it.

Somebody needs to explain to me the British obsession with construction equipment, or DIGGERS as they are called here.  Diggers are a common site in London, a entire city which lately resembles  one giant construction project.  And at every construction site, you'll see them: the gawkers on foot, the rubber-neckers in passing cars and bikes and busses.   It's like Britons have never seen a digger before.

For the past six months, construction workers have been tearing up every street in our neighborhoud to replace the 150-year-old Victorian water mains with modern materials.  It's been going on so long that I don't even notice the sights or sounds anymore.  Yesterday I'm walking to the Angel tube station when I notice a small crowd at the intersection of Chapel Market. What's happening? Has somebody had a heart-attack? Is Chantelle , Kate Moss or some other Z-list celebrity in our midst?

Oh no. It's just a bulldozer going about it's business of making giant holes in the road. Yet people of all ages, kids and moms and seniors, are staring at the bulldozer as if any minute it will transform into a giant robot.  Britons are so obsessed with diggers that they even have an entire amusement park dedicated to the machines. The oh-so-original-and-clever name of this theme park? Diggerland. 

Take that, Disney.