As an aside ... when assembling this, it was useful to spread out the work across my dining room table to allow us to slide everything round and have enough space to work. This meant we were thankful to my very understanding girlfriend for letting us do this. By "understanding" I mean "out the country and will never know what we put the dining room table through" or she would probably staple parts of my anatomy to the ceiling.

MDF is great to work with, as you don't need to worry about the wood grain, and so can cut it in any direction as shape required. Try not to get too much of the dust into your face though when working with it, as it creates a particularly fine dust.

The two sheets of wood I bought were relatively large 2' x 4' boards, and getting a straight and consistent cut with a hand-saw would be very difficult. The solution to this was to clamp the two sheets together, and cut through both at the same time with a circular saw. All four halves were then clamped together in a big sandwich, and the slightly irregular edges cut back. This ensured that the four 2' x 2' halves were all the same size. One of the squares was then set aside, and the remaining three squares cut in half to create the six smaller boards.