on). No, I would be thinking: do I have the right willy? What if those well-meaning state troopers, scouring the dusty roadside (‘There it is! We got it!’), actually located somebody else’s?
You may not remember the old German film The Hands of Orlac, but it is relevant, I promise. The plot concerned a virtuoso pianist who by a crushing misfortune loses both his hands in a railway accident, but whose career is ostensibly saved when a scientist secretly sews on some donor hands belonging to a freshly hanged murderer, whose dexterous speciality happened to be strangling and knife-throwing. Doubtless you can see where this is leading. The post-operative pianist peers at his big mitts (‘They don’t look like mine,’ he comments, but tragically lets it pass), and then tries to practise some scales, only to find that – musically speaking – his new fingers have ‘Geest’ and ‘Fyffes’ written all over them. It is peculiar. Then one day his fiancée’s newspaper is snatched by a gust of wind, and he automatically picks up a Sabatier, yells ‘Leave this to me!’, and hurls the knife with such deadly accuracy that it nails the paper to the floor. Naturally, there is a significant pause while she looks at him, and he looks at the knife, and then they both look at his sewn-on hands, with glum expressions.
Reports of Mr Bobbitt’s operation tell us it was only partially successful. In other words, it is not the willy that it used to be. Enough said, I think. Much attention Stateside has focused on the advisability of women taking the law into their own hands, and on the disturbing idea that here, in the Bobbitt emasculation, is the most terrifying of all female revenges. But of course it isn’t, not by a long measure. A proper job would involve detailed pre-planning, and in particular the planting of a look-alike willy on a main road (a stand-in!), possibly next to a large sign with ‘I think this is what you’re looking for, officer’ written in large letters upon it. In the sweetest of all possible revenges, Mr Bobbitt would therefore emerge from his anaesthetic and say, ‘Funny, doesn’t look like mine,’ but cast such doubt immediately from his thoughts, as impossibly far-fetched.
Tattooed serial numbers would seem to be the answer, if any man is worried. But I doubt Mrs Bobbitt with her kitchen knife has started a trend, or anything. Most women are rightly repulsed by the idea of mutilation; if there is a nasty cackle of joy among certain feminists at the Bobbitt news, it’s just that there is something irresistibly hilarious at the idea of standing between a man and his willy, for however brief a span. I just hope the Hollywood Bobbitt films have thought of the Orlac angle. It would be a shame not to grab it up, rush it to the studios, and stitch it on sharpish. After all, it wouldn’t even matter if it didn’t quite fit.
‘Bob Dylan has been spotted looking at property in Crouch End …’ Scene: The well-furnished drawing-room of a large house in Crouch End, north London, one afternoon in August. Birds twitter in the garden beyond; a doorbell rings; a dog barks. From the hallway, a small shriek of surprise is followed by low murmurings of welcome. The door to the drawing-room opens briefly and an estate agent is heard to say, ‘Upstairs first, I think,’ before a woman, evidently distraught, rushes in, slams the door and grabs the telephone. She dials and waits, screwing up her face and tap-dancing on the parquet in anguish and impatience. Finally her call is answered by a man with a German accent.
WOMAN: Doctor Fiegelman? Thank God you’re there. It’s happening again.
DR FIEGELMAN (on phone): Go on.
WOMAN (with strangled cry): It’s Bob Dylan, doctor. He wants to buy the house.
DR F: Mein Gott, this is serious. Are you sitting down?
WOMAN: No.
DR F: I think you should sit down.
The woman miserably slides down the wall until she is sitting on the floor.
WOMAN (whispering): Done it.
DR F: Good. Now, taking your time, what exactly is it that makes you think Bob Dylan wants to buy your house in Crouch End?
WOMAN: The fact that he is currently upstairs with an estate agent investigating the airing cupboard!
DR F: I see. And when did this start?
WOMAN: The minute I opened the door.
DR F: Mm.
WOMAN: You’ve got to help me, doctor.
DR F: And I shall. But I thought we finished with all this after Al Pacino bought that old cooker-hood you advertised in Loot?
WOMAN (faintly): So did I.
DR F: I mean, Elizabeth Taylor never turned up for the hairdrier, did she?
WOMAN: No. Not after we worked on it for two months, five days a week, at £75 a go.
DR F: And you realized, in the end, that it wasn’t Warren Beatty who bought the pram?
WOMAN: It was – um, David Essex?
DR F: That’s right. Not Warren Beatty, but David Essex. That’s very good. You’ve been doing the breathing exercises?
WOMAN: Every day.
DR F: And how big is this Bob Dylan?
WOMAN: Quite small.
DR F: Thank God for that, at any rate.
Suddenly the door opens, and BOB DYLAN enters the room, carrying a tape-measure and wearing a puzzled expression. The WOMAN whispers hoarsely into the phone, ‘I’ll call you back,’ and hangs up. She scrambles to her feet, looking guilty.
WOMAN (nervously): Ha ha.
DYLAN smiles politely, strolls to the french window, looks at the view, shrugs, mumbles something appreciative, and exits. The WOMAN points wordlessly at his departing back, and then faints on the hearth-rug. Black-out, curtain.
Scene: The same, an hour later. MAN with briefcase, evidently returning from work, enters to find wife lying insensate on the best Persian. Thinking quickly, he hurls his briefcase at her recumbent form, and it bounces off her head.
MAN: Darling, speak to me!
WOMAN (rubbing her bonce, indicating the briefcase): Why did you do that?
MAN: I didn’t have a glass of water.
WOMAN: I see.
MAN: Why are you on the carpet? Not another of your delusions, poppet?
The WOMAN nods, reluctantly.
MAN (sympathetically): Not Michael Jackson offering to spay the cat again?
WOMAN: No. Bob Dylan, wanting to buy the house, for £310,000.
The MAN whistles through his teeth.
MAN: £310,000? Well that’s something. Good heavens, £310,000, it might almost cover the therapy. I mean, what did we get for the cooker-hood?
WOMAN: Five pounds. But –
MAN: I think we should go for it.
The doorbell rings. The MAN prepares to answer
