Homage to W Heath Robinson.

It is the village annual FunDay tomorrow; fortunately, we will be up in Perth at a patchwork function - at least, Herself will be, I'll be taking a trike.

Midlothian council go to great lengths to support local events; in this case they sent their of Bunting Executive Installation Team with a few hundred metres of tatty flags and a cherry picker to string this lot up on our lampposts.

As a small child, Jnr was very fond of a book called, “The Adventures of Uncle Lubin” written and illustrated by William Heath Robinson and first published in 1902. This book featured the author's first drawing incorporating a piece of knotted string. The name “Heath Robinson” is now famous, though many people do not know anything about the gentleman, his name is now synonymous with bizarrely complicated and impractical machinery as featured in his innumerable cartoons. Over the years, he has been flattered by many imitators, illustrators from many countries (including: USA, (Rube Goldberg), Australia (Bruce Petty), Austria (Franz Gsellmann), Denmar (Storm Peterson), India (Sukumar Ray), Norway (Kjell Aukrust) and Turkey (Irfan Sayar)) have gained similar reputations and given their names to improbable machinery.

WHR went on to illustrate the first of the “Professor Branestawm” books by Norman Hunter and his legacy is currently recognised by Aardman Studios in their “Wallace and Gromit” films while the  science and engineering worlds have produced real machines that have been Christened “Heath Robinson,” including Alan Turing’s decryption engine at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.