passing values to a function

Why does this not work? Am I doing something wrong?

CREATE FUNCTION uutest(text) RETURNS bool AS '
declare
varop alias for $1;
begin
raise notice '' varop is '',varop;
return false;
end;
' LANGUAGE 'plpgsql';

Giving
select uutest('INSERT');
returns

NOTICE: varop is
uutest
--------
f
(1 row)

Has my PG server entered some weird state or something?

One other question.. Is there an easy way to pass an entire record to a
function (eg, the 'new' record)? Presently I am passing all 12 fields as
separate parameters.

-Cedar