Do dreams come true? Will Hornby save Airfix? Will I be chairman of Barclays?

Can there be a middle-aged man in Britain whose heart did not beat a little faster last week at the news that Hornby has expressed an interest in acquiring Airfix? This would be a merger that might have been dreamed up in a 1960s toy cupboard. Ailing Airfix is owned by Humbrol, which makes the little pots of enamel paint we used to use on our Airfix model aeroplanes, and which also produces Plasticine. Hornby is the great model railway company that also happens to make Scalextric cars. To complete the set, all we need is a deal-structure modelled in Meccano (also originally a Hornby product) by a suave young investment banker called Action Man (b. 1966).

But can Airfix survive at all? Its fundamental problem is that so few of today’s small boys, reared on fast food and computer games, have the attention span or enthusiasm required to assemble a classic Airfix Spitfire kit.