Madame Tussauds powers up animatronic Cher

A spokesman claiming to represent Madame Tussauds wax museum in London has announced the unveiling of a new model of Cher. As opposed to being fashioned from wax, the model has been constructed from real body parts discarded by the highly talented chanteuse after her many plastic surgery operations.

"It hasn't taken us that long to amass the collection," said the spokesman yesterday. "We paid a couple of street urchins to hover around at the back of Cher's surgeon's surgery, and collect the pieces as they were slung out by nurses into a nearby skip.

"The urchins had a bit of competition from a few stray dogs but 90 per cent of what they collected is free from tooth and paw marks — we're very pleased with the overall condition."

"Most exciting of all," added the spokesman, "was the discovery of Cher's pre-Botox mouth. Our animatronics whizzes have managed to connect this to her larynx (found wrapped in an old newspaper) and the model will be able to smile and greet visitors — just like the real thing!

"Our technical team have even found a way of connecting Cher version 2.0 (as we're calling her) to the Ask Jeeves website. Visitors will be able to key in questions about Cher's life and career, and the model will 'speak' the answers. We think Cher Version 2.0 will very quickly become one of our most popular attractions."

A representative from the London Tourist Board looked queasy when we explained the project to him earlier today. He promised to get back to us after he'd had a lie down but has so far failed to do so.

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