All hail the work of the Brazilian Buttock guy

The nose guy came on first, then the breast guy and finally the thigh guy, who actually made his name in buttocks, but as the star of the show was given leave to diversify. He looked like Julio Iglesias and referred to that region of the body best suited to liposuction as the "muffin". This was the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons Expo 2006, and it was a riot.

Martin Kelly should, by rights, have been escorted on stage by a blast of stadium rock: it isn't every day someone comes up with a new nose job. But the 200 plastic surgeons in the Bath Assembly Rooms just clapped politely and tilted their heads to one side as Kelly outlined his idea for "foil as an absorbable biomechanical scaffold", something he illustrated with slides of people undergoing cosmetic rhinoplasty. ("Cosmetic" isn't a word favoured by the industry, which prefers the less frivolous sounding "aesthetic".)

"People have complained that the nose felt a bit beaky, a bit stiff," said Kelly, "but it softens." Then he showed a picture of some bone fragments and hunks of human flesh which - isn't it always the way? - looked a lot like chicken. "One need not violate the septum in every case," he said, and went on to talk about a procedure known as "septal lengthening," footage of which, I can confidently say, will stay with me for ever.

There was applause and a few questions, then Dr Joao Cabas-Neto from Brazil came out to talk about a new breast reduction procedure he likes to call "the fish," on account of how pre-surgery lines he draws on his patients' breasts look like upside down fish.

He talked about the cultural differences between Brazilian women - "very demanding" - and Anglo-Saxon women and how to get "the frontal flap in the right position." The picture of the frontal flap is going to stay with me, too.

Then it was time for lunch and the surgeons moved to a side room, where manufacturers of plastic surgery equipment fought for their custom. While snacking on pasta, the surgeons bounced rival silicon implants in their hands and adjusted their ties.

MemoryGel Breast Implants ("the Beauty of Trust") competed with the Becker Expander Breast Implant Family and a UK manufacturer who preferred to remain anonymous but said wearily: "It's very much become a commodity market." His implants were better than the other companies' implants, he said, because of something called "micro-texture," a smooth surface that he said helped healing and retailed for between £150 and £400, per breast.

A man selling surgical implements at the next stall picked up a syringe gun and said, "Pow!", then dropped his smile and added: "Hopefully, we can make people's lives better." (The purpose of the syringe was to take fat from your abdomen and reintroduce it to your face.)

Dr Adam Searle, the head of BAAPS, gave advice on how to avoid patients who are, as he put it, "psychologically, up the swanee," and said that the most problematic were those with "unrealistic expectations," such as "anyone who comes in with bosoms on her lap and shows you a picture of Angelina Jolie".

Then it was time to go back into the hall for the headline act, Professor Luiz S Toledo of the Gulf Speciality hospital, Dubai, who would talk for half an hour on Liposculpture and Fat Injection, a follow-up to his showstopping talk of the previous day, The Brazilian Buttock.

He talked with disgust about surgeons who remove too much fat, then said he had to leave to catch a plane. On the screen above the stage, footage of one of Prof Toledo's famous liposuctions played. Two British surgeons in the audience took sharp breaths. "Nice," said one, shaking his head in admiration.