Gherkin Street

By Red Dinger:

I have a mate. He shall remain nameless other than to say his name rhymes with “George”.

Now, the first thing I can tell you about him is that he is the one bloke to never go out drinking with. There are two reasons for this. First, he has a wicked sense of humour. Second, he is an eye surgeon. So what? Well, that means he the unique qualification of being able to remove people’s faces.

You see, to operate on people’s eyes he first peels back their face, does the microscopic eye surgery thing and when he is done he puts their face back. You can hardly see the stitches.

I learnt this the hard way. I vividly remember the first time I partied with him. Me, him and about five mates had a huge night out painting the town. When we woke up the next morning he had switched all our faces around. Boy how we laughed!

That reminds me, can I have my face back now please Hugh Jackman? I think you’ve used it enough please. Mind you, what do I have to bargain with? “If you don’t give me my face back I’ll damage yours.” Too late. Speaking of which, stop growing sideburns out of my face will you? Makes me look ugly.

It’s not the first transplant I've undergone over the years by the way. No, it wasn’t an “enlargement” thank you very much, it’s something that happened to me when I was much younger. Fourteen to be exact.

When I was that tender age I noticed that all my friends’ voices had “broken” and yet mine hadn’t. They did heaps of tests and eventually I had the choice of being ridiculed for life or get a voice-box transplant. I chose the latter and the operation was a complete success, I got a relatively normal male larynx and life moved on. At the end of the day I have a lot to thank my “donor” - a young car crash victim – for. It did take a bit of getting used to as for the first few years I could only speak Japanese but I worked it out. Baka gaijin.

Incidentally, my voice-box went to a young woman who suffered from terrible hirsutism and a deformed voice box. There is an argument that perhaps I should have persisted with my old Larynx but I just can’t see myself as selling as many hit records as what my donee did. Go for it Madonna. Besides, I hate to wax now almost as much as she did then.

It can be quite lucrative selling body parts you know. Jules Lund has my left buttock cheek although in truth they did trim it a bit before fitting it on him. I sold my facial cheeks to Kerry-Anne Kennerley as she has botoxed hers to death. Warney has dibs on my fingers should he ever need a new spin-finger. I only have the one testicle now but then, by an amazing co-incidence, so does Rove’s Peter Hillier and his looks a lot like mine if you get my inclination.

Speaking of my inclination, while I've had a number of offers for selling it, almost all of these have been from my wife. I already sold (gave away more like) my backbone and thin waistline when marrying her, hasn’t she had enough already?

I suppose the only thing of any value I have left to sell is my remaining eye. I sold the other one to a bloke who kept getting swooped by magpies and wanted one for the back of his hat. Turns out of course he just shot the magpie and on-sold my eye on Ebay. The magpie too. Its ok though as I picked up a cheap one myself from an Iraqi seller. Very prompt service although a bit suspicious - it was delivered with the rest of the head attached.

Incidentally, there is another thing never to do after drinking too much – start browsing Ebay. Anyone want to buy a rugby league team? Turns out I own one now. They wear red and green and can’t win a game to save themselves. Russel Crowe has a lot to answer for in selling them to me I’ll say. And after I sold him my hands at a huge discount! I’ll have my revenge - up until now people just assumed he got new hands only because his knuckles were worn out. Well, shall we tell them about your palms too? Russell? Put the phone down ….