So first thing this morning, my phone goes. Can I call the plastic surgeon’s secretary.  I call the plastic surgeon’s secretary. Someone has cancelled, she tells me, and I can take their slot. Do I want to come in for my first operation on Tuesday?

Well, I hadn't seen that one coming. The first thing that goes through my head is: “My work might not be too keen on this” (I hadn’t even warned them surgery was in the offing). The second is: “Yes, yes, indeed I do want to get this out of the way very much indeed.”

Assuming nothing would be happening until well into summer, I hadn’t made any sort of preparation whatsoever. So I’m thrown into a flurry of booking transport to Glasgow, warning my parents that I’m about to impose on them, and so on. Work can’t be nicer, it turns out, and of course I can take as much time off as I need. By mid-morning, my appointment with the scalpel is confirmed.

I’d take the time to reflect on this, and offer you my considered response. But I haven’t two minutes to myself all day. Never did I anticipate the brontosaurean NHS would compel me to act so swiftly. Remind me to ask the plastic surgeon if he can fit in a bit of liposuction while he’s at it.

"It's like going for plastic surgery, and coming out looking like an even bigger freak than I did previously." Gonnae put that in your song, Alanis? I know it's not actually an example of irony, but then neither are all those other things in your popular sub-grunge ditty.

I did look a right state coming out of hospital yesterday, though. My face had swollen up so much that I resembled football hooligan "documentary" presenter and all-round ballbag Danny Dyer. A scar, with stitches still in place, ran down perpendicular to each ear, with a large plaster plastered at the bottom of both. The nurses had instructed me not to wash my hair to keep soap out of the incisions, and dried blood was still caked to my lobes. I had to reassure the taxi driver who picked me up that I hadn't suffered a serious kicking.

Back at my parents' house, I'm now recuperating. Not that my present condition involves much physical discomfort. My left calf - from where the surgeon had harvested a spare nerve for my face - sends occasional spasms of pins and needles down to my foot. Eating is made slightly more difficult by the numb, engorged face and the stitches on the inside of my top lip. And I can't wait to scrub my greasy locks, which I'm banned from doing until tomorrow. All things considered, though, it's no more of an endurance than a typical Glastonbury.

Anyway, the swelling should subside in a fortnight. I haven't had a chance to survey my new collection of scar tissue yet, as I have to keep the plasters on the facial incisions until tomorrow and a dressing on my leg until next week. I'll have to have my stitches unpicked - ouch - in seven days, but this doesn't bother me as I'm dead hard.

Oh, and the operation was apparently a success. Still woozy from anaesthetic, I managed to speak to the surgeon shortly after the procedure: all had gone well, he reassured me, and I can come back in six months or so for the second stage. At which point my face will balloon out again and I'll have another chunk gouged out of my leg.

I now feel quite sympathetic to the plight of fading LA starlets. Which isn't particularly ironic, as I didn't have a hostile opinion of them beforehand. But I'm sure that's plenty for Ms Morissette to work with.