Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz

Damn you, Kokomo, for writing the catchiest song in the world.

I was happy floating along in my silent, simple world, until your new song came into my head and won't leave.

Blast you for ‘World's Most Jealous Girl' which started a party in the cerebellum, and worse, the rhythmelodical subcortical, the part of the brain that triggers uncontrollable foot tapping and dad dance moves.

Damn you for getting this song, involving some really catchy lyrics and a nifty tune wedged into every waking hour… Why couldn't you have just stuck with making good music, instead of really excellent music?

Please people, avoid the misery I now find myself in. Don't go to this link and listen, or you also will be afflicted. http://www.kokomo.co.nz/listen--watch.html

The song is written with help from John Michaelz, recorded locally at Whakamarama and performed by frontman Derek Jacombs, who incidentally would make an excellent music columnist for the Sun, if it wasn't for the fact we already have Winston Watusi.

Song science

Coincidentally this week, our researchers became aware of a science project that has decided the catchiest songs of modern time. We will not be surprised if ‘World's Most Jealous Girl' ends up on that list in a year or so.

The scientists have too much time on their hands and studied for a year to discover the songs which are most memorable and easily recognised.

The geeks at the Science and Industry museum in Manchester, directed listeners to a website where they could play an online game called Hooked on Music, which contained clips from 1000 hit songs from the last 70 years – the top selling 40 tracks of each decade since the 1940s.

The survey rated the Spice Girls ‘Wannabe' top of the list, followed by Lou Bega's ‘Mambo No 5' and Survivor's ‘Eye of the Tiger'.

We suspect the study could have been completed in much shorter time than a year, but the researchers likely struggled to accept the result, so kept repeating it in the forlorn hope that surely, adult human brains are more advanced than the Spice Girls. Unfortunately, it appears we aren't.

Hopefully, the release of ‘World's Most Jealous Girl' will knock Posh and Associates off their perch.

Brain processes

The scientists are interested in how our brains process music, and why some pieces stay in our memory for such a long time. But they do have some serious goals in mind.

'If we have a better understanding of how the musical memory works, we are hopeful that we can move into research on people with dementia,” says Dr Ashley Burgoyne.

Here at RR, we reckon they should see if people with failing memory can recall ‘Boys Light Up' and whether there's a correlation between those who light up and those who can't remember.

Another legendary tune absent from the list is the John Rowles classic ‘Share your Marijuana With Me' which may ring a few bells with anyone suffering memory loss now.
Weather with you.

Meanwhile, it has been good weather for staying indoors and listening to music. Some of the weather thrashing the Bay in the last few weeks has included the full range of extremes.

During the storms a couple of weeks ago, RR team noticed some interesting descriptions from officials.

The helpful people at Civil Defence seemed to struggle with the terminology for the weather event that blew bits and pieces off homes in Mount Maunganui.

People who lost roofs and those with debris scattered across their properties called it a ‘Mini tornado'.

Some media called it a twister and the bloke whose fence was demolished called it a 'bastard of a thing”. Other residents dispensed with the pedantic and just called it a proper 'tornado”.

Civil Defence however, in a release the next morning termed it ‘a patch of strong wind'.
I say chaps, we think it was more than that! The English language has plenty of useful terms to describe this sort of event, I am surprised there wasn't a more fitting description.

The good folk at Baypark would probably take issue with the concept that the end of the stadium was bowled over by a ‘patchy wind'.

One fellow said it was 'M… F… howling maelstrom of fury” – henceforth to be known as a MFHMF, should you have reason to coin the phrase again.

Later on the Friday as the clean-up progressed, CD had decided the event was a 'windstorm” which we reckon is a tad more convincing that a Patch of Strong Wind but still fairly vague and understated.

Blowin' in the wind

Still blowing in the wind, is the flag project. We've had plenty of feedback on this issue, with most of you still not convinced we need a new one. The guvmint doesn't seem to be singing from the same song sheet as the rest of us.

The RR concept of the transparent flag has gained a bit of support. Meanwhile, we are still waiting to hear a response on how much of the $26 million for the flag project, supposed to foster national pride, has been blown with foreign owned media; and how much has gone in the direction of loyal, patriotic New Zealand-owned media.

For more RR, ‘like' us on Facebook (Rogers Rabbits Blogger) and check out ‘Columns' in SunLive.co.nz including the Transparent Flag and other archived pearls of wisdom.

brian@thesun.co.nz