Busy Days in Laikingland

John Lumbus has now started working with us to help with the assembly of the Applause Machines. He's an automata maker in his own right and a man of many talents. On his first day he made several movies of the machines clapping and learnt how to make my tea just how I like it. (Quite strong with milk and one sugar.)

Update: On John's second day Martin made all the tea and bought cake.

Congratulations

The Applause Machines are proving to be popular wedding presents. This is no surprise as I originally presented Nick and Elsa with one at their wedding and from that Laikingland was born. The happy couple, Julie and Mike, are very pleased as apparently it matches their orange SMEG fridge!

Thank you to Indya Mealing for the photograph.

Anthony Horowitz

The author and screenwriter Anthony Horowitz talks about the Applause Machines as one of his favorite objects. He says "I can give myself a round of applause if I write a decent chapter". It's always nice to know that our machines are being used and appreciated.

8859 Cycles

Our rigorous summer testing continues. We ran an Applause Machine non-stop with a new set of Duracell batteries. It clapped an amazing 8859 times before we felt the enthusiastic applause had turned to a slow hand clap and therefore ended the test in order to change the batteries.

Tube Benders!

It's very exciting as more parts arrived today. This time it's the bent tubes that lift the Applause Machines mechanism off the wooden base. Thanks to Ian at M&M TUBEFORM for doing such a great job. I'm so pleased, as I'll never have to bend one of these by hand again, Hooray.

The Applause Machine Collection.

Here are the Applause Machines in the five colours that we will be launching on an unsuspecting public on the 1st September 2008. This is the first in a series of kinetic devices that Laikingland will produce around the themes of nonsense and celebration.

BRAVO!!!.. to the Happy Couple.

So Nico and Delphine have tied the knot & celebrated with a fabulous Russian themed wedding party of lively folk music, traditional dance performances & table gifts of beautifully hand painted Russian dolls for each of the 250 guests..... Apparently the overall Russian dolls weight of 18 kg was carried personally by Nico in his hand luggage from Moscow last week.

Some significant amount of French style was of course thrown into the arrangements, with the beautiful mansion on the Normandy coastline, a DJ mixing an eclectic array of franco / anglo / global tunes and enough champagne to more than fill the outdoor swimming pool.

It all made for lots of happy memories, a few blurry eyes on Sunday and just enough space (but much less weight) in Nico's hand luggage, when he takes the Applause Machine back to Russia.