'Every time I eat out, I brace myself for Twitter to start off again,' says  Derryn Hinch.

'Every time I eat out, I brace myself for Twitter to start off again,' says Derryn Hinch. Photo: Simon Schluter

ON THE Hinch Outrage Index it probably rates a one out of 10, but nevertheless the disappointment was palpable when the Human Headline discovered that the ''very, very good'' salmon fish cakes had been taken off the menu at his favourite local diner, Dish. ''My wife will kill you,'' Hinch says to manager Brad Morrison, despite the explanation that the very irresistibility of these piscatorial munchies had been overtaxing the kitchen. The Mouth That Roars immediately loops into an anecdote. Seems a Hinch mate years ago was advised that the hamburgers on TWA flights were ''the best'' and duly ordered same. ''Yes, they were good,'' the hostie said, ''but they were so popular we had to take them off.''

An allegory, perhaps, for the man himself. Rating No.1 in 3AW drive, and No.1 in mornings for years before that, the classic Hinchburger is being taken off 3AW's 2013 menu in favour of the Tom Elliott quarter-pounder. ''I was blindsided,'' Hinch said when the switch was announced in August, but he now suspects his five-month absence (without pay) doing home detention did him harm. ''And I was asked how long I was going to keep going with this 'paedophile' thing,'' he says in astonishment, noting that the pending royal commission had vindicated his long and emotionally draining campaign.

We are sitting at Hinch's favourite table - which is actually two small tables pushed together - in a corner far enough from the front door to discourage too many cries of: ''Look ma, there's Darryl Hinch.''


Yes, it amuses him that, after so many top-rating years on Melbourne airwaves, so many of his glued-on fans still screw up his name. Darryl. Derrick. Darren. Even Endora in TV's Bewitched got hapless son-in-law Darrin's name right occasionally. So Derryn it is - Derryn Nigel Hinch, 68, a man eternally on a mission. In the oft-quirky way he views the world, Hinch last year saw an inadvertent injustice in the possible prison sentence he faced for naming two child molesters. But not injustice for himself - with a newly transplanted liver, it meant that part of someone else would have to go to jail, too.

That ''someone else'' was a young man named Heath Gardner and it occurred to me that lunching with Hinch was, in a nice way, a dejeuner a trois. Gardner's mother, Lynda, and his two sisters attended the launch last month of Hinch's latest book, A Human Deadline (Cocoon Lodge), comforted by the notion that in their loss, new life was given to another.

But now Morrison appears, pouring Hinch's usual ''shiraz'' - a rich red drop from a bottle with an impressive label - to go with his usual order, a healthy vegetarian salad with eggplant, falafel, parsley and mint. Hinch sips his red and makes one of his Hinch/Hunch prognostications. ''Every time I eat out, I brace myself for Twitter to start off again - Hinch on the piss again.'' But he's not - Hinch says he would never dishonour the precious gift he was given by Gardner via surgeon Bob Jones. Hinch's plonk is strictly the Edenvale non-alcoholic variety. ''During my house arrest - it's not all fun, y'know - they would sometimes knock on the door around 9.15 for a random breath test. One night I'd probably had three-quarters of a bottle of Edenvale but I blew 0.00.''

Vegetarian salad with eggplant.

Vegetarian salad with eggplant. Photo: Simon Schluter

In the wild old days, he would quaff at least four bottles of vino a day. He and his Rat Pack mates would often lunch over ''bankers' hours - one to two''. That's 1pm to 2am! ''It didn't seem that bad,'' he says. ''I'd get up at 5.17am, at the office by 6, finished by 1pm and you're free again 'til the next morning. So you have a bottle at lunch, another bottle later in the afternoon, at dinner you'd have a bottle, then reading or writing or watching TV you'd sip away on a fourth.'' He quotes himself in his book speaking to 60 Minutes, which taped the whole transplant procedure: ''I was a f---ing idiot, absolute f---ing idiot. Just to sit down and stare at your own stupidity … it's as confronting as anything I think you can face.''

The liver he murdered is pictured in his book, a pock-marked, desiccated anatomical fossil. He and wife Chanel held it in their hands, fascinated by the death sentence it had imposed on its owner. ''Do you often see livers this bad?'' Chanel asked the medicos. ''Only at autopsies,'' was the reply. Hinch describes it as a ''Dorian Gray liver''.

He says Jones told him later that, at the time of transplant, he probably had about two weeks to live. And far from working in his favour, Hinch's celebrity status actually counted against him. ''Bob Jones had told his staff that even if a new liver had been available in the first three months, they could not give it to me because it would appear to be giving an advantage,'' he says. ''In the end, Bob says they probably waited too long.'' And as the dodgy old liver sucked the life out of him, many a well-wisher threw a hopeful lifebuoy - an embroidered handkerchief blessed at Lourdes, details of a ''wonderful faith healer in Manila'', a guaranteed cure made from the pureed contents of a can of asparagus. He took it all with good grace despite his utter scepticism about ''miracle'' anything.

Gnocchi with butternut pumpkin.

Gnocchi with butternut pumpkin. Photo: Simon Schluter

It is an extraordinary roller-coaster life that Hinch has lived thus far. Like the lyrics of the Sinatra track, Hinch has been up and down, over and out. He has been jailed, divorced, sacked, hired and remarried. He has been indestructible and mortally ill, extravagantly wealthy and parlously poor, but like Ol' Blue Eyes, he has always managed to pick himself up and get back in the race.

Hinch revels in the story of the weekend at Woodend when his pockets were bare - only $6.49 in the bank. But he could not even access that because the ATM minimum was $20. His Macedon vineyard had not helped. ''It was like standing in a cold shower for seven years tearing up $100 notes.''

Yes, he can laugh at it all. Even that day he was taken to the Austin for the operation to save his life and the hire car went to the wrong door - it pulled up at the Melbourne Brain Centre. ''Well, some people say I need a new one,'' he quips. That's life.