Anyone familiar with oriental military history will be aware that the nunchaku is believed to have derived from rice flails and used by untrained militias, so in principle at least, it could be both.
I was going to post and say caltrops, but it seems everybody else got there first, so I reckon it's a caltrophone - a nine foot tall percussion instrument in the shape of a caltrop.
The cow picture, and the flickr username suggest that it was one of Manchester's 'Cow Parade' cows. http://manchester.cowparade.com/cow/gallery
Hundreds of fibreglass cows were decorated and displayed in the city of Manchester for 3 months a couple of summers ago. Fantastic :)
Run you car on cowfarts...