My uncle is the caretaker in a gyroscope museum. It is a tiring job, but very rewarding. There are more than two hundred gyroscopes in the museum, and many have been lovingly restored by retired seamen so that when you press a small red button at the bottom of the glass case, they will come on and begin to rotate. My uncle loves watching the faces of small children light up as they see the rotating devices in action. The museum does not get a lot of visitors, although it was opened by one of Princess Anne's personal navigators.
Among the onion community there is one type that the rest look down upon with sneering contempt. He is the freelance onion - able to work for any employer, provided the price is right. Other vegetables call him a mercenary, but this is unfair. The freelance onion will never be tied to one place, or one chef. Wherever onions are needed, the freelancer will be there. The resident onions feel their territory is being infringed, especially those with a permanent position on the BBC's Masterchef programme. But the freelance onions are used to their scorn, and the extra wages they earn more than make up for it. They have only one drawback - their mission completed, they always leave the most terrible stains.
The wheel-barrow assassin watches his victim descend the marbled staircase, beetroot in hand. He waits, coolly, as the small bespectacled figure squeezes his beetroot firmly - firmly, so that one of the blood vessels in his hand bursts, and the blood mixes with the beetroot juice, becoming indistinguishable at a distance of more than 20 paces. Then the man taps the side of his suitcase, checking that its strontium-lined contents are secure. Satisfied on this score, he then walks across the plaza and is directly on target when the assassin releases his wheel-barrow with one swift, sleek movement. The wheel-barrow plummets 30 feet, and kills its victim stone dead. The assassin smirks, and completes the Times crossword in less than 2 hours 40 minutes.