Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

The big news rocking the world this week is that researchers have discovered crabs do not like being given electric shocks and are likely to feel pain.

This will come as a bit of a surprise to all of you who were thinking of popping out this afternoon onto the Otumoetai mudflats with a car battery and a couple of electrodes made from gran's old knitting needles, and doing a spot of crustacean electrocution.

I know it has changed the way I will spend my spare time. Those of you with a fetish for wiring up small defenceless mud critters and giving them an overdose of electrons will be delighted to know you are not alone. Turns out, it is quite fashionable.

The latest study by Professor Bob Elwood and Barry Magee from Queen's University Belfast School of Biological Sciences looked at the reactions of common shore crabs to small electrical shocks, and their behaviour after experiencing those shocks.

The research has been published in the Journal of Experimental Biology – which sounds way more interesting to read than the Postie catalogue, although some of the facial expressions on the models are remarkably similar to the crabs.

The good scientists discovered that crabs were prepared to give up their dark hidey holes in order to avoid getting another belt.

It sounds a little cruel. Why they decided on electric shocks is not clear. Yet probably less cruel than torture with repeats of Shortland Street or council recordings of Murray Guy.

Why in the world would scientists feel the need to test the response of crustaceans to voltage is beyond me.

Although to be fair, they believe the study may have some relevance to the food and aquaculture industries, and how they treat live crustaceans such as crabs, prawns and lobsters.

Pretty insignificant, I would have thought, compared to the plight of lobsters I've met, who have been less concerned about shock therapy and more worried about the iki spike poised overhead and the pot of boiling water on the stove.

I would have thought science had more to concern itself with. Such as, maybe how Bieber or hobbits or the woman from the TV furniture ad respond to a bit of stray current. Hang on, we're not allowed to bash the hobbits any more. It's just weird… at least according to avid reader Chris Thomas, who writes:

Hi Brian: I've always in the past enjoyed reading Rogers Rabbits, but the last two editions, I wonder if you might have lost the plot a little. It's OK having a bit of fun with the PC brigade, some of them certainly deserve it, but your references to 'feeling as stupid as a nurse answering a phone' and Donny Osmond singing 'who let the dogs out' go too far for me. Neither do I find the hobbit rabbit funny, just weird.

It may be worth remembering the departure of Paul Henry who lost his sense of balance with regards to his audience.

Please let's have the old Rogers back so I can look forward to enjoying a good read again on Friday.

Regards, Chris.

So in a last gasp attempt to not hurt Chris' feelings, or those of the hobbits or anyone else in the firing line, we will be applying electro shock therapy to Rogers to see if we can fire up the old Rabbiter. (We would like to thank Chris though, for providing an opportunity to run those particularly poor-taste lines again… and mentioning the great Paul Henry.)

And it got me thinking, Paul Henry could be a keen closet hermit crab torturer from way back. This would improve his TV show greatly, if he could get hold of Gran's knitting needles and be let loose on some victims.

Another idea circulating the vast voids of the RR Research Facility this week, on the back of the shell shocked crab story, is we should get the scientists to extend their studies to test the reaction of ample voltage on recidivist drink drivers, loud boy racers, texting drivers and people who start lawnmowers before 8am on a weekend.