Frost is crackling underfoot on the lawns of the Watusi Country Club – time to throw another banjo on the fire.

Gee. Banjo jokes just aren't the same without Doctor Jazz around. These days the only people using them play in folk bands where a banjo actually sounds rather good.

But folk or jazz are equally welcome in this week's column, along with any other musical style you care for. Because this week we've got a song competition.

I realise this is slightly old news now, but I don't think it's been getting the publicity it warrants.

Song contest

You might not even have heard about it, a shame indeed because it would rob you of a chance to win the Te Puke Highway Song Contest.

It's such an obvious idea really, I don't know why I'm surprised. Te Puke's getting a new road so they want to immortalise it in song.

It's what every new road needs – a song. If Tauranga City Council had been a bit smarter out of the gate they could have solved all Route K's problems right there. Where was its song? No wonder no one's using the damned thing.

But wait a minute... The new road doesn't actually go to Te Puke.

As we all know, the whole reason for spending billions and billions of taxpayers' hard-earned dollars on the Tauranga Eastern Link was so we wouldn't have to drive through Te Puke any more.

Old road

After years of public petitions, MPs finally gave in and said 'Okay. We get it. You don't want to have to go anywhere near Te Puke. We understand. Have a new highway.”
So why a song competition? Well, this is a song competition to write a song for the old road. The one that still goes to Te Puke.

Yep. Not content to spend up large so that we don't have to go to Te Puke anymore, the Government clearly wanted a bob both ways, so to curry favour with the good folk of Te Puke – whom no one will ever see again now that a shiny new highway means we can avoid them – they've allowed them to rename a stretch of soon-to-be-deserted State Highway 2.

Route 66

Beat the drums, unfurl the banners – that bit of road between Papamoa to Paengaroa is now to be called The Te Puke Highway.

That's what the song competition is about. Don't blame the road. They reckon Route 66 has been a mess for decades: the song's still pretty good. No doubt you're busting a gut right now wanting dash along to
www.tepuke.co.nz/news/157/24/Te-Puke-Highway-Song-Contest/d,details and enter.
(Just as an aside, yes, that URL does appear to have a stutter in it. ‘d,details'? I don't know why either).

But be warned. If you thought this was going to be easy, wait till you hear the conditions. There are some fish-hooks to jump...

Goodness grows

First of all the terms and conditions state: 'Entrants acknowledge that the purpose of this competition is to search for a song that celebrates the Te Puke Highway, a place where goodness grows, and the uniqueness of Te Puke's special place in New Zealand”.
Leaving aside any consideration of 'the uniqueness of Te Puke's special place in New Zealand” (though I will happily print the best email suggestions in next week's column).

Does that strange sentence really propose that goodness grows on the actual highway? Hmmmm...

But, ignoring grammatical mangling, a bigger challenge may be that: 'The winning song must include the lyrics ‘Te Puke Highway' and ‘Te Puke Goodness Grows Here' as a chorus or in several verses”.

Call me cynical, sceptical or anything you like, but I have some doubts as to whether ‘Te Puke Goodness Grows Here' is really going to cut it alongside ‘Get your kicks on Route 66'.

Win a trip

Why do I keep mentioning Route 66? Because the winner will receive an expenses paid trip to the USA for a tour of Route 66. That's a helluva good prize, irrespective of the two highways' relative merits. So get writing. If you get as far as a single pithy couplet but don't feel like completing the song – just send it to me and I'll put it in the column. Watusi goodness grows here.

watusi@thesun.co.nz