In its striped finish, Mecha Naut is the one that could fool you. Rust-brown bands run across a cream shell in the pattern a chambered nautilus actually grows, and for a moment you'd take it for the animal itself. Then you switch it on, the tentacles begin moving in their slow flowing rhythm, the rear propeller turns, and the creature you thought you were looking at reveals a motor inside. Very few ornaments get to surprise you twice.

Of course, it comes apart. Lift the alloy covering away and all that careful paintwork gives way to copper, steel and gearing — a sharper contrast here than on the plainer versions, because nothing on the outside hinted at it. It arrives fully assembled, ready to set on its illuminated base. Decoration this convincing usually means the object is all surface. This one is the opposite.