Monsieur Gaston, the well-known hairdresser, is world famous for his super bouffant creations. Here, he practices with his new trimming cutter.

Chef Maurice is asking for a loan to establish a frog breeding farm to supply his restaurant Le Grenouille, but the manager says Non!

Good shooting is a fine art and as with all art, to be really good you need continual practice. Unfortunately, the shooting season is quite limited, so our sportsman feels he and his dog must put in some realistic practice at home during the summer.

The lady of the house has employed a singing teacher who is seated at the grand piano. Unfortunately, her husband has only just finished re-wiring an electrical circuit under the floor and has started to nail a floorboard back into place. The rather plain lady is clearly irritated by the hammering noise and is pointing it out to the man. Just as she is doing so, he hammers once too often and the floorboard, complete with the woman tips up, and throws her onto a couch.

Here we see the man of the house rodding a lavatory in order to clear a blockage while his wife takes a bath. Clearly his efforts in removing the obstruction have been successful, because the end of his rods push up through the bath drain and lift the woman clear of the bath.

The plumber is busy energetically ‘rodding’ the lavatory to clear a blockage. After a short while a snake, who does not like being disturbed, comes out and bites him. It must be every plumber’s nightmare.

This automaton features an abbot who is having his lunch of beer with bread and cheese. While taking a drink of his beer, he hears a scuffle and on looking down sees a mouse eating some cheese that has fallen from his table. Not wishing to disturb his new friend, his index finger rises and he starts to give the little fellow a blessing. However, thinking perhaps he should not, adjusts his movements accordingly.

Doctors use the patella reflex to check the serviceability of elements of the spinal cord, by sharply tapping the knee cap. In this case, the doctor has a surprise because in addition to the normal response of the lower leg kicking, the patient’s hair rises and his eyes flash. Definitely not the normal response!

This simple hand powered automaton presents the general writing his long awaited memoirs with an over size quill pen.

Albert Einstein, the brilliant mathematician, has a dream. As he dreams, his arm rises and index finger flashes with an idea, he sits up and realises, his eyes flashing, that he has discovered the Theory of Relativity and raises the other arm with his great equation E= MC2 written on a flag.

In this case the dentist is having great difficulty extracting a tooth and has resorted to putting his foot on the patient’s chest as he pulls and pulls. This is causing excruciating pain and the patient moves his legs and arms in an attempt to ease it. In the end, he becomes so fed up with the dentist that he whacks the dentist with his umbrella. Haven’t we all, at some time, wanted to do the same!

This automaton features a husband and wife with their dog called Tonto. They follow the horses with their binoculars. Just beyond them is Honest Joe, one of the bookies, who has offered odds of 100/1 on a horse called Lucky Boy. Unfortunately for him Lucky Boy is the winner, but the Tote scrolling indicator board shows they have been offerings odds of only 32/1. This makes Honest Joe very angry and his eyes flash red at the thought of losing all that money before he collapses.

The cardiologist is a very eminent doctor who has developed a revolutionary new technique for inserting the wires required for a pacemaker. This requires vigorous use of the instrument inserted into the patient’s groin. All seems to be well until the patient sits up with his eyes flashing before he falls back down on to the couch.

In the wilds of West Somerset there is a dedicated church deacon called David, who, as a side line, plays the guitar rather well. This automaton was made as a tribute to him and for all the pleasure he gives.