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Heath Robinson other odd phrases – the Australian happy as a boxing kangaroo in fog time and the New Zealand happy as a sick eel on a sandspit – it was meant positively: extremely happy or content. There’s a suggestion that it comes from the name of the nineteenth-century Australian boxer Larry Foley (1847–1917), though why he was especially happy nobody now seems able to say. But this origin is far from certain. The phrase is more likely to come from an English dialect source, larrie, joking, jesting, a practical joke, or larrikin for a mischievous youth. Another possible link is with the Australian and New Zealand term larrikin for a street rowdy or young urban hooligan, recorded from the late 1860s. Either of these sources could afterwards have been reinforced through a supposed connection with Larry Foley. Heath Robinson (Br) – чудо-юдо; чудо морское; непрактичное изобретение; диковинка One of the eponyms, i.e. words coined after people’s names. If a machine or system is described as Heath Robinson, it is absurdly complex and fancifully impractical. The term was coined after W. Heath Robinson (1872–1944), a British artist known for drawing ingeniously complicated devices. He was a superbly inventive cartoonist who created wonderful “Modern Times” (1936), and pointless contraptions which Charles Chaplin, Eating Machine sent up the 20th century’s lust for technology. To say that Robinson was a lover of the absurd is a gross understatement, as he drew very complicated machines that performed simple tasks: The ancient church of St John the Baptist in Clayton, East Sussex, has a bat problem. Several devices of a Heath Robinson nature are suggested – boards to deflect the trajectory of urine and droppings, flashing lights, ultra-sound, unpleasant smells, stuffed owls, rustling aluminum foil and helium-filled balloons. 68