Monthly Archives: September 2026

The Publisher, the Prostate, the Plumber and the Shower Scene

by

The offices of Hyperion Publishing were sleek and modern, all glass walls and minimalist furniture and shelves displaying books by authors who had actually finished writing things. Barry sat in a leather chair that was far too soft for a man who spent his days crawling under sinks, clutching a notebook filled with his handwritten chapter list. Beside him sat Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna, arranged like a bizarre panel of guardian angels—or perhaps guardian meddlers.

Across the table sat Marcus Webb, a publishing executive with the kind of earnest smile that suggested he had once believed in literature. He was beginning to reconsider.

“So,” Marcus said, pen poised over a legal pad, “Barry. Let’s start with the title. You got a title for this book?”

Barry straightened up, proud. He had spent three nights thinking about this. He had written it on the back of a plumbing invoice. He had practised saying it in the mirror. “Yes,” he said. “The Man, The Myth, and The Funnel.”

Marcus nodded, writing it down. “The Man, The Myth, and The Funnel. Ishower picture like it. It’s catchy. It’s—”

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“What Barry meant to say,” Catherine Zeta-Jones interrupted, leaning forward with the kind of smile that had launched a thousand magazine covers, “was that this is a possible title. A working title. A… a first draft of a title, if you will. I think he was leaning more towards—” she paused dramatically, “—Welsh Women and the Prostate: A Journey.“

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Barry turned to look at her. “I don’t remember telling you that.”

“Well, you wouldn’t, Barry,” Cath said, patting his hand condescendingly. “You’re healing.”

“I’m not healing. I’m just writing a book.”

“Healing,” Cath repeated, nodding at Marcus as if this settled the matter.

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Marcus looked between them, his pen hovering uncertainly. “Okay. So… we have two possible titles. We can work with that. Now, how big should this book be, Barry? Chapter-wise? Page count? We’re thinking—”

“Twenty chapters,” Barry said, holding up his notebook. “I have a list right here. Chapter One: ‘The Waterworks.’ Chapter Two: ‘Funnel Envy.’ Chapter Three: ‘The Trapeze Incident.’ Chapter Four—”

“Twenty chapters is a minimum,” Gaga interrupted, her dress today constructed entirely from shredded manuscript pages, giving her the appearance of a very glamorous recycling bin. Trevor II the cockatoo sat on her shoulder, still coughing intermittently. “I think what Barry is trying to say is that this book should be an experience. A multimedia event. An immersive journey into the soul of the funnel.”

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“I didn’t say any of that,” Barry said.

“You didn’t have to,” Gaga replied. “Your eyes said it.”

Marcus blinked. “Okay. So… more than twenty chapters?”

“A hundred,” Gaga declared.

“Twelve,” Barry said firmly.

“We’ll compromise at eighty-five,” Cath suggested.

“That’s not a compromise,” Barry said. “That’s just a different number.”

“Details,” Cath said.

Marcus scribbled something on his legal pad that might have been “85?” or might have been a doodle of a noose. “Okay. Any pictures? Illustrations? We could do some diagrams, maybe—”

“No,” Barry said quickly. “No pictures. Just words. Words about… about my journey. About the blockage. About the unblocking. Metaphorically.”

“I think what Barry is trying to say,” Cath interjected, “is that the pictures alone will encompass at least three chapters. I mean—” she gestured dramatically, “—take a look at them!”

Before Barry could protest, Cath had pulled out her phone and handed it to Marcus. The publisher began scrolling. His eyebrows rose. His eyebrows rose further. His eyebrows reached an altitude previously unknown to publishing executives.

Barry leaned over to see what Marcus was looking at. His face went pale. Then red. Then pale again.

“Me in the shower?!?!?” Barry exclaimed, his voice cracking like a teenage boy’s.

Cath sighed, a long, mournful sigh. “I wanted to show the public a healthy prostate… but you wouldn’t turn around.”

“You were in my bathroom?!”

“I was documenting your journey, Barry. For posterity.”

Marcus had stopped scrolling. He was staring at the screen with the expression of a man who had seen things he could never unsee. “Is that… is that him on a trapeze?”

“Yes!” Cath said proudly. “That’s Chapter Seven. Or possibly Chapter Eight. I haven’t decided yet.”

Barry buried his face in his hands. “I’m going to die. I’m going to die in a publishing office.”

Rihanna, who had been silent throughout the exchange, finally spoke up. She was wearing a simple white dress and holding a plate of muffins—lemon poppy seed this time, “for clarity of vision.” She set the plate on Marcus’s desk.

“Here,” she said. “Have a muffin. Don’t eat it. Just look at it. It helps.”

Marcus looked at the muffin. It was, objectively, a beautiful muffin. Perfectly domed. Delicately glazed. Topped with tiny, shimmering sprinkles that caught the overhead light like scattered diamonds.

“Why can’t I eat it?” he asked.

“Because it’s not about eating,” Rihanna said. “It’s about potential. A muffin you don’t eat is a muffin that can be anything. A muffin you eat is just… a muffin. Gone. Forgotten.”

Marcus considered this. It was, he realized, the most coherent statement anyone had made all meeting. He set the muffin gently on his desk and turned back to Barry.

“So,” he said, “no pictures. What about… endorsements? Blurbs? Anyone famous willing to write a foreword?”

“I’ll do it,” Gaga said immediately.

“I’ll do it better,” Cath said.

“I’ll do it with muffins,” Rihanna said.

Barry raised a hand. “Can I… can I just write the book? Can I just tell my story? Without the trapeze photos and the shower pictures and the… the prostate documentation?”

Marcus looked at him sympathetically. “Barry, I’m going to be honest with you. This is the most interesting book proposal I’ve heard in fifteen years. I don’t fully understand it. I don’t know what funnel envy is. I’m not sure I want to know. But I want to publish it.”

Barry blinked. “Really?”

“Really. But—” Marcus held up a finger, “—I have one condition.”

“What?”

“I want the shower photo on the cover.”

Barry opened his mouth to protest, but Cath was already clapping her hands with delight, and Gaga was already sketching cover designs on a napkin, and Rihanna was already planning the launch party menu (all muffins, no food), and Trevor II was coughing in what might have been approval.

And Barry, defeated, picked up his muffin—the one Rihanna had given him hours ago, still untouched—and held it to the light.

It was a perfect circle of potential.

Just like him.

“Fine,” he said. “But I’m writing an entire chapter about how this was all Catherine Zeta-Jones’s fault.”

“Chapter Nine,” Cath said. “I’ll write the foreword.”

“No you won’t.”

“I already have.”

Barry sighed. Marcus scribbled. Gaga’s cockatoo coughed.

And somewhere in the distance—beyond the glass walls, beyond the publishing office, beyond the absurdity of it all—a kookaburra laughed.

Or maybe it was Barry.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the book itself, beginning to write itself into existence, one ridiculous chapter at a time.

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United Nations, the Plumber, the Prostate and Mrs Zeta Jones

by

The United Nations General Assembly Hall was a cathedral of diplomacy, a monument to international cooperation, a place where world leaders gathered to discuss matters of grave global importance. Today, it was hosting Catherine Zeta-Jones giving a PowerPoint presentation about erectile dysfunction.

The delegates sat in their assigned seats, wearing headphones through which translators furiously whispered in six official languages. Unfortunately, none of the translators had been briefed on the subject matter. None of them spoke Welsh. And none of them—as would soon become abundantly clear—had any idea what was happening.

In the front row, Lady Gaga sat resplendent in a dress constructed entirely from what appeared to be repurposed United Nations flags, stitched together with golden thread and adorned with a live sulphur-crested cockatoo named Trevor II who had developed a persistent cough. Beside her, Rihanna wore a sleek black pantsuit and held a plate of muffins—tiramisu-flavoured this time, “for diplomatic immunity.” And beside Rihanna sat Barry the plumber, wearing his one suit, clutching his hands together, and wondering if it was too late to flee the country.

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“You’ll be fine,” Cath had told him backstage. “You’re the star of the show. The living proof.”

“I’m the living proof of what?” Barry had asked.

“That men can be fixed!”

“I’m not fixed. I’m just… thinner. And confused.”

But there was no time for further discussion. Cath was now at the podium, clicking through her PowerPoint with the confidence of a woman who had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

“Distinguished delegates,” she began, her voice echoing through the hall, “I stand before you today to discuss a crisis that affects millions of men worldwide. A crisis that is shrouded in shame, in silence, in… in…” She squinted at her notes. “In mystery. I’m talking, of course, about downstairs problems.”

The delegates stared at her blankly. In their headphones, translators scrambled.

“Problems… below… the stairs?” whispered the French translator.

“She is speaking of architecture?” hissed the Spanish translator.

“I believe she refers to a basement,” offered the Russian translator.

Cath clicked to the next slide. It showed a crudely drawn diagram of what appeared to be a pipe, rendered in bright crayon colours, with arrows pointing in various directions. A childlike sun smiled in the corner. The words “THE FUNNEL” were written in wobbly letters.

“As you can see,” Cath announced, “this is a funnel. Not to be confused with fun, which it is not. Whoever put the word ‘fun’ in ‘funnel’ is literally worse than the devil and Lucille Ball put together. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again.”

The delegates leaned forward, squinting at the diagram. The Japanese translator, who had been having a particularly bad day, simply wrote: “She is discussing a kitchen implement.”

“Now,” Cath continued, clicking to the next slide, which showed a stick figure with an arrow pointing to its groin area and the word “PROSTRATE” written in red crayon, “the prostrate is a crucial part of the male anatomy. It is located… somewhere. I’m not a doctor. But I am a celebrity, and I have access to doctors. So that’s basically the same thing.”

Barry buried his face in his hands. Rihanna patted his shoulder sympathetically and offered him a muffin. He took it and held it to the light, examining its perfect dome. It helped. A little.

“The prostrate,” Cath continued, “can become… inverted. This is a serious condition. I don’t know what it means, but Barry had it, and now he doesn’t, because of the trapeze.”

She clicked to the next slide. It showed a drawing of a trapeze, rendered in purple crayon, with a stick figure hanging upside down from it. The stick figure had a smiley face. The trapeze had a smiley face. Even the sun in the corner had a smiley face. It was, objectively, the worst PowerPoint slide ever presented at the United Nations.

“The trapeze,” Cath said, her voice swelling with pride, “is the key to unlocking your inner funnel. Barry lost twenty pounds in one day using this method. Even though his prostrate was inverted. That’s the title of my presentation, by the way. ‘How Barry Lost Twenty Pounds in a Day Even Though His Prostrate Was Inverted.’ It’s a working title.”

The delegates applauded politely. They had no idea what they were applauding. The German translator, who had given up entirely, simply wrote: “She is very enthusiastic about something.”

Gaga rose from her seat, her UN flag dress rustling like a diplomatic incident. “She’s not explaining it right!” she called out. “The trapeze is a metaphor! The funnel is a symbol! The muffins are a lifestyle!”

“Sit down, Gaga,” Rihanna hissed. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m artistically helping!”

Trevor II the cockatoo let out a wet, rattling cough. Several delegates turned to look. One of them, the representative from Finland, appeared genuinely concerned.

Barry raised his hand tentatively. “Ms. Zeta-Jones? Can I… can I say something?”

Cath beamed at him. “Of course, Barry! You’re the expert! You’re the living proof!”

Barry stood up, his suit straining slightly at the shoulders. He looked out at the assembled delegates—hundreds of people from around the world, all wearing headphones, all staring at him with expressions ranging from confusion to mild alarm. He took a deep breath.

“I’m a plumber,” he said. “I fix pipes. I don’t know anything about the United Nations. I don’t know anything about diplomacy. I don’t even know what ‘prostrate’ means. I think it’s something to do with lying down.”

The translators scrambled.

“He is a… pipe repairman?” whispered the French translator.

“He does not know what ‘prostrate’ means,” confirmed the Spanish translator.

“I also do not know what ‘prostrate’ means,” admitted the Russian translator.

“But I do know,” Barry continued, “that these three women—” he gestured at Cath, Gaga, and Rihanna, “—helped me when I was at my lowest. They didn’t understand my problem. They still don’t, really. But they tried. And that’s more than most people do.”

The delegates were silent. They understood nothing. But they understood that.

“So if there’s anyone out there,” Barry said, “anywhere in the world, who’s struggling with their own… their own funnel… I just want you to know: you’re not alone. And also, apparently, trapeze helps. I still don’t know why.”

He sat down. Rihanna handed him another muffin. Gaga’s cockatoo coughed again.

Cath, apparently moved, dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “That was beautiful, Barry. Truly beautiful. And now—” she clicked to her final slide, “—for my closing statement.”

The slide showed a photograph of Barry from before and after, side by side, with the caption “THE FUNNEL METHOD: RESULTS MAY VARY” written in Comic Sans.

“Distinguished delegates,” Cath announced, “I give you Barry. A man who lost twenty pounds in a day. A man whose prostrate was inverted and is now… not. A man who proves that with determination, with friendship, and with a trapeze, anything is possible.”

She paused dramatically.

“And that,” she declared, “is how Barry lost twenty pounds in a day even though his prostrate was inverted!”

The hall erupted in applause. The delegates had no idea what they were applauding. They had no idea what a funnel was, or why it was envious, or what a trapeze had to do with anything. But they applauded anyway, because Catherine Zeta-Jones was a movie star, and because Barry the plumber had spoken from the heart, and because Rihanna’s muffins looked genuinely delicious.

The French translator leaned into her microphone and said, simply: “I do not understand. But I am moved.”

The Spanish translator added: “I believe we have witnessed something important. I am not sure what.”

The Russian translator concluded: “Perhaps it is better not to know.”

And somewhere in the back of the General Assembly Hall, a kookaburra laughed. Or maybe it was Trevor II’s cough. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the universe itself, acknowledging that sometimes—just sometimes—the most absurd stories are the ones that make the most sense.

Barry looked at his muffin. He looked at the three women who had turned his life upside down. He looked at the assembled delegates of the United Nations, none of whom understood a single word that had been said.

And he smiled.

“Same time next year?” he asked.

“Same time next year,” Cath confirmed.

“With muffins,” Rihanna added.

“And birds,” Gaga said.

And Trevor II coughed in agreement.

The ED University Speech from Barry the Unblocked Plumber

by

lady gaga fisicoThe Great Hall of Sydney University had never seen anything quite like it. Then again, the Great Hall of Sydney University had never hosted the annual Funnel Envy Conference before—a fact that was made abundantly clear by the confused expressions of the academics in attendance, who had expected a symposium on hydraulic engineering and were now staring at a stage adorned with pink and purple banners reading “UNBLOCK YOUR POTENTIAL” and “FLOW LIKE NEVER BEFORE.”

Barry stood at the podium, gripping its edges with hands the size of dinner plates. He was wearing a suit. He had bought it specially for the occasion. It was the first suit he had ever owned, and he suspected it might also be the last, because nothing in his life had prepared him for the experience of standing before three hundred people—including several distinguished professors, a representative from the Sydney Water Board, and a man who had wandered in thinking this was a plumbing supplies expo—and preparing to give a speech about his own erectile dysfunction.

In the front row sat Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lady Gaga, and Rihanna. Cath was wearing a navy blue dress that screamed “serious but supportive.” Gaga was wearing a dress constructed entirely from what appeared to be repurposed funnel-shaped garden ornaments, spray-painted gold and strung together with fishing line. A cockatoo named Trevor II (Trevor I had been left at home with a cold) perched on her shoulder, surveying the room with aristocratic disdain. Rihanna was wearing a simple black tracksuit and holding a plate of muffins—blueberry this time, “for emotional balance.”

“You’ve got this, Barry,” Cath had whispered as he took the stage. “Remember: you’re not just a plumber. You’re a funnel. A working funnel.”

“I don’t think that’s helping,” Barry had replied, but he had stepped up anyway.

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Now, twenty minutes into his speech, Barry was finding his rhythm. He had abandoned his prepared notes after the first paragraph—they had been written by Gaga and included phrases like “the phallic symbolism of the pipe wrench” and “ejaculatory hydraulics”—and was speaking from the heart.

“So there I was,” he said, his voice gaining confidence, “standing in Ms. Zeta-Jones’s apartment, trying to tell her about my… my problem. And I said ‘waterworks.’ Because I panicked. And then I said ‘funnel envy.’ Because I panicked harder. And she thought I meant the house.”

The audience laughed. Barry allowed himself a small smile.

“And then these three—” he gestured at the front row, “—these three took melifespan of a king parrot to a doctor. And they didn’t judge me. Well, Ms. Gaga judged me a little. But mostly they just… they just helped. They gave me muffins. They made me exercise. They put me on a trapeze.”

More laughter.

“I still don’t know why there was a trapeze.”

Gaga nodded solemnly, as if the trapeze had been essential.

“And I know this is a conference about… about what I have. About funnel envy. About E.D. And I know there are doctors here, and specialists, and people who understand the science of it all. But I’m just a plumber. I don’t understand the science. I understand pipes. I understand flow. I understand that sometimes, things get blocked. And sometimes, you need help to unblock them.”

He paused, looking at the three women in the front row. Cath was dabbing her eyes with a tissue. Rihanna was holding up a muffin in solidarity. Gaga’s cockatoo had fallen asleep.

“These women helped me unblock. Not just my… my funnel. But my… my shame. My fear. My belief that I was broken and couldn’t be fixed. They showed me that asking for help isn’t weakness. It’s just… maintenance. Regular maintenance. Like checking your pipes before winter.”

The audience applauded. Barry felt something swell in his chest—not his funnel, but something else. Pride, maybe. Or gratitude.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice thick. “Thank you for listening. And if there’s anyone out there who’s struggling with their own… their own blockage… I just want you to know: you’re not alone. And also, apparently, trapeze helps. I don’t know why. But it does.”

He stepped back from the podium, and the applause grew louder. He was just about to return to his seat when Catherine Zeta-Jones rose from the front row, her navy blue dress swishing with purpose.

“Barry!” she called out, her Welsh accent cutting through the noise. “Barry, wait!”

Barry froze. “Ms. Zeta-Jones? What are you—”

“I have something to show everyone!” Cath announced, striding toward the stage. She pulled something from her handbag—a large, glossy poster board, the kind used by schoolchildren for science fair projects. “Barry, you forgot to mention the most important part!”

“I did?”

“You did!” Cath turned to face the audience, holding up the poster board. On it were two photographs. The first showed Barry from a week ago—a large man in a stained t-shirt, holding a pipe wrench, looking deeply uncomfortable. The second showed Barry from yesterday—the same man, but somehow… different. His face was slightly less round. His posture was slightly more confident. He was wearing the suit.

“Before!” Cath announced, pointing at the first photo. “And after!”

The audience murmured with interest.

“Barry lost twenty pounds!” Cath declared. “In one day!”

Barry’s face went pale. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, that’s not—”

“The Funnel Method works!” Cath continued, her voice rising to infomercial pitch. “Twenty pounds! One day! Look at him! Look at that jawline! That jawline was hidden under pipe-related despair! Now it’s free!”

“Ms. Zeta-Jones, I really don’t think—”

“And it wasn’t just the exercise!” Cath said, warming to her theme. “It was the muffins! The kale muffins! They were disgusting, but they worked! Barry ate one and immediately lost three pounds! Mostly from vomiting! But still!”

Rihanna stood up, holding her plate of blueberry muffins. “These ones are better! They only make you lose one pound, but they taste like heaven!”

Gaga rose as well, her golden funnel dress clanking. “And the trapeze! Don’t forget the trapeze! Trapeze is the key to unlocking your inner funnel!”

Barry covered his face with his hands. “I’m going to die. I’m going to die right here on this stage.”

But the audience was laughing. Not at him—with him. They were laughing and applauding and taking photos with their phones. Somewhere in the back, a professor of urology was nodding thoughtfully, as if considering whether to incorporate trapeze into his practice.

Cath lowered the poster board and looked at Barry with genuine warmth. “You did it, Barry. You unblocked yourself. And we’re so proud of you.”

“I lost twenty pounds because I was so stressed I couldn’t eat for three days,” Barry muttered. “And I’m pretty sure the trapeze nearly killed me.”

“Details,” Cath said, waving a dismissive hand. “The point is: you’re a new man. A thinner man. A man whose funnel is no longer envious.”

“My funnel is still envious. That’s not how any of this works.”

“Shhh,” Cath said, pressing a finger to her lips. “The audience doesn’t need to know that.”

Barry looked out at the crowd—the laughing, applauding, slightly bewildered crowd—and then at the three women who had turned his life into a surrealist performance art piece. He thought about his van, and his tool belt, and his mate Dave with the different knee.

And then he did something unexpected.

He laughed.

“Fine,” he said, stepping back to the podium. “Fine. Yes. I lost twenty pounds. Yes. The trapeze helped. Yes. The kale muffins were terrible but effective. And yes—” he looked directly at Catherine Zeta-Jones, “—these three women changed my life. Not because they fixed my funnel. But because they made me believe it could be fixed. And that’s worth more than twenty pounds. Even twenty pounds in one day.”

The audience erupted in applause. Gaga’s cockatoo woke up and screeched approvingly. Rihanna threw a blueberry muffin onto the stage, which Barry caught with surprising grace.

And somewhere, in the back of the Great Hall, a kookaburra laughed.

Or maybe it was Trevor II.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was Barry himself—thinner, happier, and finally, at long last, unblocked.

Weight Loss, erectile dysfunction, a plumber and secret exercise

by

The morning after the hospital visit, Catherine Zeta-Jones found herself pacing her Milsons Point apartment like a caged tiger in silk pyjamas. The harbour glittered below, Luna Park’s painted grin seemed to mock her with its frozen mirth, and somewhere in the distance, a ferry horn blared its indifference to her spiralling thoughts.

She had a plan. It was, she admitted to herself, not a good plan. But it was *a* plan, and that was more than she’d had yesterday.

Her phone buzzed. A text from Gaga: “I’ve procured the equipment. It’s very avant-garde. Also I may have accidentally adopted another cockatoo. Unrelated.”

Another buzz. Rihanna: “I’m bringing more muffins. These ones are kale-flavoured. They’re terrible. Perfect for motivation.”

Cath took a deep breath and dialled Barry’s number. He answered on the third ring, his voice cautious. “Ms. Zeta-Jones? Is everything okay? Did another pipe burst?”

“Barry,” she said, her voice dripping with the kind of honeyed urgency that had launched a thousand romantic comedies, “you need to come over. Immediately. It’s urgent.”

“What’s wrong? Is it the east wing again?”

“Worse,” Cath said, her mind racing. “It’s… it’s a blockage. A serious blockage. You said you had experience with blockages, didn’t you?”

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There was a pause. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, I’m not sure I like where this is going.”

“You said there was some blockage you had to get rid of!” Cath pressed, her Welsh accent thickening with desperation. “You told me that! At the hospital! You said you wanted to fix things!”

“I meant my… my funnel,” Barry hissed, lowering his voice as if his neighbours might be listening. “Not an actual blockage. What are you talking about?”

“Yes,” Cath said smoothly, “it’s in your body. The blockage. We need you to lose twenty pounds.”

Silence. Then: “What?”

“It’ll fix your downstairs dysfunction,” Cath continued, as if explaining something perfectly reasonable. “It’s science, Barry. Or medicine. Or something. No rush… but hopefully by the end of the day.”

“By the end of the day?” Barry’s voice cracked. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, I think that’s impossible.”

“That’s what you think, Barry,” Cath said, and she could hear the smile in her own voice now, the confidence of a woman who had access to things ordinary mortals could only dream of. “We’re celebrities. We have access to things that commoners don’t. Have you heard of Dr. Phil?”

Another pause. “Yes. I have.”

“Oh.” Cath’s confidence flickered. “Well, it was bound to leak out eventually. Anyway, there’s a new thing for weight loss. It’s called… exercise. I’ve never actually done it myself, but I have heard of it. Apparently it’s very effective. Gaga’s bringing the equipment.”

“The equipment?”

“She wouldn’t specify. She just said it was ‘avant-garde’ and that she may have adopted another cockatoo. Unrelated, apparently.”

Barry made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been a sob. “Ms. Zeta-Jones, I’m a plumber. I fix pipes. I don’t… I don’t do exercise.”

“Neither do I, Barry. Neither do I. But here we are.”

An hour later, Barry stood in Catherine Zeta-Jones’s living room, staring at what Lady Gaga had assembled. It looked like a cross between a medieval torture device and an art installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art. There were pulleys. There were resistance bands. There was something that might have been a stationary bicycle, if bicycles were designed by someone who had only had them described to them over a bad phone connection. And there was, inexplicably, a trapeze.

“What…” Barry began.

“It’s a holistic fitness journey,” Gaga said, her voice reverent. She was wearing a leotard made of what appeared to be recycled wetsuits, adorned with a live blue-tongue lizard that blinked lazily from her shoulder. “I call it ‘The Funnel Method.’ Trademark pending.”

“The what now?”

“It’s about flow,” Gaga explained, gesturing dramatically. “About unblocking. About releasing what no longer serves you. Also there’s a lot of sweating.”

Rihanna emerged from the kitchen, carrying a plate of muffins that were suspiciously green. “I brought kale muffins. They’re disgusting. You’ll hate them. That’s the point.”

Barry looked at the muffins. He looked at the trapeze. He looked at Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was now wearing a tracksuit that probably cost more than his van and looking at him with an expression of manic encouragement.

“I think I made a mistake coming here,” he said.

“Nonsense,” Cath said, clapping her hands together. “Barry, listen. The doctor said your… your issue… could be related to circulation. Cardiovascular health. Stress. All of that. And what better way to improve all of those things than with a bespoke, celebrity-approved fitness regimen?”

“I thought you said you’d never exercised.”

“I’ve observed exercise,” Cath said, waving a dismissive hand. “From a distance. Mostly in movies. I did a boxing scene once. I was very convincing.”

“She was,” Rihanna confirmed. “I’ve seen it. Very convincing.”

Barry rubbed his face with hands the size of dinner plates. “So let me get this straight. You lied to me—again—to get me here. You told me I had a blockage. And now you want me to…” he gestured vaguely at the trapeze, “…do that?”

“Twenty pounds, Barry,” Cath said. “By the end of the day. It’s for your funnel.”

“My funnel is fine! I mean, it’s not fine, that’s the whole problem, but it’s not going to be fixed by—” he gestured at the trapeze again, “—whatever that is!”

Gaga stepped forward, her lizard shifting to her other shoulder. “Barry, I understand your scepticism. But consider this: the funnel is a metaphor. The blockage is a metaphor. The twenty pounds is a metaphor. And also literal weight. It’s both. It’s very postmodern.”

“I don’t know what postmodern means.”

“It means we’re all just… floating. On a rock. In space. And nothing matters except connection.” Gaga paused. “Also, I brought a smoothie. It’s green. It tastes like regret.”

Rihanna held up the kale muffin. “This muffin is your journey, Barry. It looks healthy. It smells terrible. But if you eat it, you’ll feel like you’ve accomplished something. Even if you haven’t.”

Barry stared at the three women—the movie star, the pop icon, the billionaire—and wondered, not for the first time, how his life had come to this. He was a plumber. He fixed pipes. He had a van and a tool belt and a mate named Dave who had once come out of a hospital with a different knee.

And yet.

And yet, these three absurd, beautiful, utterly ridiculous women had taken him to a doctor. Had sat with him during the interview. Had held his hand and given him muffins and told him he wasn’t broken. They had lied to him—twice—but they had done it out of some strange, misguided, deeply sincere desire to help.

He looked at the trapeze.

He looked at the green smoothie.

He looked at Catherine Zeta-Jones, who was watching him with an expression that was equal parts hope and terror.

“End of the day?” he asked.

“End of the day,” she confirmed. “No rush.”

“I’m not doing the trapeze.”

“Understood.”

“Or the lizard.”

“The lizard stays with me,” Gaga said, offended. “His name is Trevor.”

Barry took a deep breath. “Fine. Fine. I’ll do your celebrity exercise thing. But I’m telling you now: if I die, I’m haunting all three of you. Forever. And I’m bringing Dave.”

“That’s fair,” Rihanna said.

“Completely reasonable,” Gaga agreed.

Cath smiled, a genuine smile that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “Welcome to The Funnel Method, Barry. It’s going to be terrible.”

“It always is,” Gaga said, “but that’s how you know it’s working.”

And somewhere in the distance, beyond the window, beyond Luna Park’s painted grin and the glittering harbour, a kookaburra laughed. Or maybe it was Trevor the lizard. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Barry himself, beginning—against all odds—to believe that maybe, just maybe, he could be fixed after all.

The plumber, the hospital and Gaga, Zeta and Rihanna

by

The morning sun over Sydney Harbour was gentler than the previous day’s blaze, a soft apology for the emotional carnage of the afternoon before. Catherine Zeta-Jones stood at her floor-to-ceiling window, watching the ferries cut white trails across the water, and felt something she hadn’t expected: hope. Or perhaps it was just the caffeine from her third espresso. Either way, it was an improvement.

The plumber—whose name, she had finally learned, was Barry—stood in her foyer, looking deeply uncomfortable. He was a large man, all shoulders and calloused hands, with the kind of weathered face that suggested he’d spent decades squinting at pipes in dark crawl spaces. His tool belt hung from his hips like a gunslinger’s holster, though today it seemed to weigh him down rather than empower him.

“I don’t understand,” Barry said, his voice a low rumble. “You said there was an emergency. A burst pipe. A catastrophic failure.”

“There is,” Lady Gaga said, gliding into the room in a dress made entirely of what appeared to be repurposed Sydney Opera House sailcloth, adorned with crystals that caught the light like scattered stars. A sulphur-crested cockatoo perched on her shoulder, eyeing Barry with suspicion. “A catastrophic failure of the spirit. A burst pipe of the soul.”

Barry blinked. “What?”

Rihanna appeared from the kitchen, holding a plate of her donut-flavoured muffins. She was dressed in a simple white tracksuit that probably cost more than Barry’s van. “We’re taking you to the hospital, Barry. It’s for your own good.”

[Menu]

“The hospital?” Barry’s face paled beneath its weathered tan. “I ain’t sick. I told you, it’s just… it’s just the…” He trailed off, unable to say the words.

“The funnel,” Cath said softly, turning from the window. She was dressed in a cream-coloured linen suit, her hair pulled back in an elegant chignon, every inch the movie star. “Barry, we know. And we want to help.”

Barry’s eyes darted between the three women—the Welsh icon, the pop art installation, and the Barbadian billionaire—and he seemed to realize, perhaps for the first time, that his life had taken a turn into the deeply surreal. “You want to help me with my… with my…”

“Funnel envy,” Gaga supplied helpfully. The cockatoo screeched in agreement.

Barry winced. “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know why I said that. It just came out. I was embarrassed and you were talking about the east wing and I just—”

“Barry,” Rihanna interrupted, her voice gentle but firm. “We’ve got a car downstairs. A very nice car. It has heated seats and everything. Just come with us. No one’s going to judge you.”

“I’m judging him a little,” Gaga whispered to Cath, but it was the kind of whisper that everyone heard.

“No you’re not,” Cath whispered back. “You’re wearing a building.”

The car was, indeed, very nice—a black Mercedes van with tinted windows that glided through the streets of Milsons Point like a shark through calm waters. Barry sat in the back, sandwiched between Gaga (whose sailcloth dress crinkled ominously with every bump) and Rihanna (who had brought the muffins along, “for moral support”). Cath sat up front with the driver, occasionally glancing back at their captive guest with a mixture of guilt and determination.

“I don’t like this,” Barry said. “I don’t like hospitals. My mate Dave went to a hospital once. Came out with a different knee. Not his knee. A different knee entirely.”

“That’s not how hospitals work,” Rihanna said.

“That’s what they told Dave.”

The hospital was a sleek, private facility in Darlinghurst, all glass and calming colours and receptionists who didn’t bat an eye when three international superstars walked through the doors with a bewildered plumber in tow. Money, it turned out, did buy discretion. And also a private consultation room with a view of the city skyline.

Dr. Patricia Nguyen was a small, precise woman with kind eyes and the unflappable demeanour of someone who had seen everything. She looked at Barry, then at the three celebrities arranged around him like a bizarre honour guard, and simply said, “I see.”

“He’s here for…” Cath began, then paused, realizing she didn’t actually know how to phrase it.

“For funnel envy,” Gaga said, with the confidence of someone stating a medical diagnosis. The cockatoo had been left in the van with strict instructions to behave, but Gaga had replaced it with a small, jewelled spider brooch that seemed to watch Barry with its tiny ruby eyes.

Dr. Nguyen’s pen paused over her clipboard. “I’m sorry?”

“E.D.,” Barry muttered, staring at his boots. “Erectile dysfunction. That’s what it is. That’s what I got. Funnel envy was just… I don’t know why I said that.”

Dr. Nguyen nodded slowly, her expression professionally neutral. “I see. And these three women are…?”

“Friends,” Rihanna said.

“Concerned citizens,” Gaga added.

“I hired him to fix my faucet,” Cath said, “and then I made everything worse.”

Barry looked up at her, surprised. “You didn’t make it worse, Ms. Zeta-Jones. You just… you didn’t understand.”

“Because you said ‘waterworks’ and ‘funnel envy’!” Cath exclaimed. “How was I supposed to understand?”

“I panicked!”

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Nguyen interrupted, her voice calm but firm. “And ladies. Let’s focus. Mr. Barry, I’d like to ask you some questions. Privately, if you don’t mind.”

Barry’s eyes widened with alarm. “They can’t stay?”

“Patient confidentiality—”

“No, I mean…” Barry swallowed hard. “I mean, can they stay? I know it’s weird. I know this whole thing is weird. But they came all this way. And they brought muffins.” He gestured at Rihanna’s plate, which she had somehow smuggled into the consultation room. “And I feel like if they leave, I’ll just… I’ll just run. And I don’t want to run. I want to fix this. I want to be… I want to be a working funnel again.”

Gaga placed a hand on his arm, her sailcloth dress rustling sympathetically. “That’s beautiful, Barry.”

“It’s the muffins,” Rihanna said. “They’re very inspiring.”

Dr. Nguyen looked at each of them in turn—the movie star, the pop icon, the billionaire, and the plumber—and made a decision. “Very well. But you’ll have to be quiet. And no…” she paused, searching for the right words, “…no interpretive dance.”

Gaga nodded solemnly, though her fingers twitched with suppressed choreographic urges.

The interview began. Dr. Nguyen asked questions—medical history, lifestyle factors, stress levels, relationship status. Barry answered them with the halting honesty of a man who had spent years hiding this particular struggle. Cath found herself holding her breath. Rihanna clutched her muffin plate like a talisman. Gaga’s spider brooch seemed to lean forward, listening.

“I just want to feel like myself again,” Barry said, his voice cracking. “I want to feel like… like I can fix things. Not just pipes. Not just other people’s problems. I want to feel like I’m not… broken.”

Cath’s eyes filled with tears. “Barry…”

“I know I’m just a plumber,” he continued, “and you’re all… you’re all you. But for one moment, when I was fixing your faucet, I felt useful. I felt like I mattered. And then I had to go and ruin it with my… my funnel.”

Dr. Nguyen set down her clipboard. “Mr. Barry, what you’re experiencing is extremely common. It’s not a reflection of your worth as a man, a plumber, or a human being. There are treatments. There are options. And there is absolutely no shame in any of it.”

Barry looked at her, then at the three women who had orchestrated this intervention. “You really think so?”

“I know so,” Dr. Nguyen said.

“Also,” Rihanna added, “I’m going to give you one of these muffins. Not to eat. Just to look at. It helps. Trust me.”

Barry accepted the muffin with trembling hands. He held it up to the light, examining its perfect golden dome, its shimmering pink glaze, its tiny rainbow sprinkles. And for the first time since he’d stepped into Catherine Zeta-Jones’s apartment, he smiled.

“It is a beautiful muffin,” he said.

“It’s a perfect circle of potential,” Rihanna replied. “Just like you, Barry. Just like you.”

Gaga began to hum something soft and strange—possibly a new song, possibly an aria, possibly just the sound of her sailcloth dress catching the breeze. Cath reached out and squeezed Barry’s hand. And Dr. Nguyen, professional as ever, made a note on her clipboard and quietly scheduled a follow-up appointment.

Outside the window, the Sydney skyline glittered in the afternoon sun. Somewhere in the distance, a kookaburra laughed. And in the consultation room, four people—three megastars and one plumber—sat together, holding muffins, and began the long, strange process of healing.

“Same time next week?” Dr. Nguyen asked.

Barry nodded. “Same time next week.”

“We’ll be here,” Cath said.

“With muffins,” Rihanna confirmed.

“And birds,” Gaga added, and no one argued, because they all knew it was true.

Zeta and plumbers with ED and funnel envy

by

The Hollywood Hills sun, a relentless, golden tyrant, had absolutely no business being in Sydney, and yet, there it was—or rather, its southern hemisphere equivalent, a blazing antipodean orb that bled through the floor-to-ceiling windows of Catherine Zeta-Jones’s palatial Milsons Point apartment. It illuminated dust motes dancing like tiny, carefree ballerinas, a stark contrast to the scene unfolding below. Cath, a vision in a silk caftan the colour of a bruised plum, was not dancing. She was sobbing. Not the delicate, practiced tears of a movie star, but the ugly, gulping, snotty kind that turns a face blotchy and raw.

Beyond the glass, the iconic, slightly terrifying face of Luna Park grinned its enormous, painted grin, the old-fashioned funfair a surreal backdrop to Cath’s existential crisis. The Ferris wheel turned slowly, indifferent to her pain, while the wooden roller coaster clattered and screamed in the distance like a mechanical banshee.

“He was… perfect,” she wailed, clutching a cushion embroidered with a koala. “He could fix anything! The leaky faucet in the guest bath, the rattling in the Aga, the thingy on the whatsit! He was a god with a wrench!”

Lady Gaga, perched on the edge of a chaise lounge, nodded sympathetically. A small, iridescent kingfisher clung to the elaborate nest of her platinum hair, its tiny head twitching. A kookaburra, incongruous and magnificent, sat on the armrest, its laugh silenced for the moment. Gaga was wearing a dress constructed entirely of what appeared to be woven eucalyptus leaves and the molted feathers of various Australian parrots. She looked like a walking, breathing aviary, a testament to high-fashion ornithology. A small sign on her headpiece read “MADE IN AUSTRALIA” in glittering letters.

[Menu]

“Men are a puzzle, Cath,” Gaga said, her voice a low, melodic hum. “They present a facade, a… a structural integrity. But underneath, the pipes are often… corroded.”

“He said he had… problems!” Cath managed between sobs. “He said, ‘Ms. Zeta-Jones, I have to be honest, I’ve got… waterworks issues.’ I thought he meant the house! I said, ‘Oh, thank god, the pressure’s been dreadful in the east wing!’ I tipped him an extra two hundred dollars! I practically threw money at him for having a faulty boiler!”

Rihanna, draped over a velvet armchair like a panther in a casual chic tracksuit, slid a plate onto the coffee table. On it sat a half-dozen muffins, perfect, golden-brown domes, each glazed with a shimmering pink icing and topped with tiny, multi-coloured sprinkles.

“Girl, you need a donut-flavoured muffin,” Rihanna said, her voice smooth as honey. “They fix everything.”

Cath sniffled, eyeing the plate with suspicion. “They sound fattening.”

“Only if you eat them,” Rihanna replied, not missing a beat. She picked one up, not to eat, but to admire, holding it to the light. “I brought them just to look at them. It always cheers me up. See? It’s a perfect little circle of potential. No calories in potential.”

Outside, Luna Park’s famous laughing face seemed to be laughing directly at Cath. The giant, painted mouth, frozen in eternal mirth, was a personal affront.

Gaga leaned forward, a small, bright green parrot shifting its grip on her shoulder. “Tell us again, darling. What did he say? The… the phrase?”

Cath took a shuddering breath. The memory was a fresh wound. “He was standing there, this mountain of a man, hands the size of dinner plates, looking so… so ashamed. And he says, ‘It’s not the house, Ms. Zeta-Jones. It’s me. I’ve got… E.D.’ And then he whispers, like it’s a state secret, ‘Funnel Envy.'”

A fresh wave of grief washed over her. “Funnel Envy!” she cried out, the words a curse. “Whoever put the word ‘fun’ in ‘funnel’ is literally worse than the devil and Lucille Ball put together! It’s a linguistic betrayal of the highest order! The devil tempts you with sin, Lucille Ball tempts you with chocolate and comedy, but ‘funnel’? It promises amusement and delivers only… only plumbing-based despair!”

Rihanna nodded slowly, examining a sprinkle on her muffin. “That’s deep. That’s, like, a TED Talk on etymology and male fragility.”

“He was trying to tell me his… his man-pipes were blocked!” Cath continued, her voice rising to a dramatic crescendo. “And I was prattling on about the water pressure in the east wing! The east wing, Gaga! I have a whole wing for the east! And I was worried about its pressure! He was talking about his… his main line! His… his structural integrity!”

Below them, a ferry horn blared across the harbour, a mournful sound that seemed to underscore her anguish. The Sydney Harbour Bridge, that great steel coat hanger, arched in the distance, connecting nothing to nothing, or so it felt.

Gaga rose, her feathered ensemble rustling like a flock taking flight. She placed a comforting hand, adorned with a ring shaped like a tiny, jewelled platypus, on Cath’s shoulder. “Catherine, listen to me. This is not your fault. You were operating under a false linguistic paradigm. He presented a domestic metaphor for a personal crisis. It’s a classic breakdown in communication, a… a short circuit in the emotional wiring.”

“He was so incredible,” Cath moaned, leaning into Gaga’s feathery comfort. “He could have fixed anything. Anything! But he couldn’t fix… the funnel.”

“Maybe it’s not about fixing, Cath,” Rihanna said, finally setting the muffin down. “Maybe it’s about… understanding. He was vulnerable. He told you his secret. Okay, he told it to you in a really confusing, plumbing-centric way, but still. It was a moment.”

“A moment of utter humiliation for us both!” Cath cried. “I offered to call a different plumber! I said, ‘Don’t you worry, I know a specialist who handles tricky water features!’ I thought I was being so helpful!”

Gaga’s kookaburra let out a sudden, loud “Koo-koo-koo-koo-koo-ha-ha-ha!” as if it couldn’t contain its amusement any longer. The bird’s laugh echoed across the harbour, mingling with the distant screams from the roller coaster.

“See?” Rihanna said, pointing at the bird. “Even the wildlife finds it funny.”

“It’s not funny!” Cath insisted, but a tiny, reluctant smile was fighting its way through her tears. “It’s a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions. A great man, brought low by his own… funnel.”

Gaga began to sway gently, a soothing, avant-garde lullaby. “Just dance, Cath. It’ll be okay. We’ll get through this. We’ll find you a new plumber. One who communicates solely through interpretive dance. Or perhaps mime.”

“Or one who just has normal problems,” Rihanna suggested. “Like a gambling addiction. Or a secret family. Something classic.”

Cath looked at her two friends: the glorious, bizarre spectacle of Gaga, a woman who wore entire ecosystems as a fashion statement, and Rihanna, who brought muffins for aesthetic appreciation rather than consumption. Her world was absurd, beautiful, and deeply, deeply strange.

She looked out the window at Luna Park, its painted grin now seeming less like mockery and more like an old, demented friend. She looked at the muffin on the table, a perfect, inedible symbol of a problem-free existence. She looked at the kookaburra, which was now trying to nibble Gaga’s eucalyptus-leaf hem.

And for the first time since she’d learned the true, devastating meaning of ‘Funnel Envy,’ Catherine Zeta-Jones let out a small, watery laugh. It wasn’t a solution. The plumber’s funnel was still, presumably, envious. But surrounded by donut muffins and Australian birds and the unwavering, if unconventional, support of her friends, the pressure in her own emotional east wing began, just slightly, to ease.

The ferry horn sounded again, and somewhere in the distance, a kookaburra laughed. Or maybe it was Gaga. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Cath herself.