Basingstoke Scientists have apologised to the family of 87-year-old Mr Bob Leadbucket after a surgical procedure in which Mr Leadbucket was given the legs of a nineteen-year-old donor went tragically wrong.
Speaking in an outrageous German accent, Dr Heinrich Schmidt, head of limbs and prosthetics at Basingstoke University Teaching Hospital, said: "As soon as we catch Herr Leadbucket, we'll give him his senility medicine. But right now zee old bugger is off cross zee lawn as soon as we get near."
Standing in the hospital grounds, watching her husband leap the flowerbeds, Mrs Florence Leadbucket (102) fought back tears. "I liked my Sid better before. The good thing about having a man with no legs is you always know where to find him. Now he's got me exhausted, chasing about the town like a mad thing. One day he was up a tree, and the next I spotted him in the middle of the London marathon."
Mr Schmidt was also criticised by Coventry University student Carol Pontins. "I heard Mr Schmidt was looking for human volunteers for his experimental work through the university magazine. It seemed a good way to earn a bit of spare cash to pay off my billion pound tuition loan. But I didn't think he'd whip my legs off as soon as I'd signed up. It was a bit of a shock when I came out of the anaesthetic to find my legs on some old bloke in the next bed. And the legs I've got now are all hairy and bony and knackered."
Controversy has often followed Mr Schmidt's radical approach to prosthetic surgery. In January he gave Stoke pensioner Harry Harpic a giraffe's neck, despite Mr Harpic's insistence that he lived in a bungalow. And last year he was summoned before the medical authorities to explain irregularities regarding the Queen Mother's hip and a rhinoceros called
Colin.
"Zeee Qveen Mother is fine," said Dr Schmidt. "Zer is no truth in zee rumour that she wallows in mud twice a day."
The Queen Mother was spending the day aging and so was unavailable for comment.
