HAVE you heard of an earworm before?

It’s not an actual worm, crawling into your orifices, by the way. Instead, it’s a piece of music, a riff, a melody, a song, that sticks in your head and cannot be shifted.

I suffer terribly from these. Probably because there is little else going on in my mind. I’m easily distracted and for long spells, I will have a song in my head.

Sometimes, it’s a song I quite like, but misremember, so the only piece of the song I can recall will loop. Or go into another song completely, then come back to the previous song.

Most of the time, unfortunately, it’s a song that I can’t stand. Previous record holders include Boney M’s Brown Girl In The Ring which was in there for about a week. Middle of the Road’s Chirpy Cheep Cheep is a regular one. That comes around a lot. Sometimes, in my head, it segues into Downtown by Petula Clark, which I quite like, but it almost always makes its way back to Middle of the bloody Road.

There are a few songs that my wife knows I can’t stand, so she’ll annoy me by playing them on YouTube to torment me. The Dame Edna version of Waltzing Matilda is her particular favourite at the moment.

Before now, I didn’t have a way to shift them. These earworms would haunt me from morning to evening.

But there is a solution. I got on to the subject of earworms on Twitter recently, and someone prescribed a tried and tested ‘earworm cleanser’. One song that will shift the rest, put a smile on your face and even if you hear it in your head, you will never ever get bored of it.

That song? It’s Tijuana Taxi by Herp Albert and the Tijuana Brass. It’s a belter. Stick that on and you’re cured.

It’s also a mood changer. I can be having a bad day, and the opening drums will kick in and suddenly, I’m in my happy place again.

This week, I have discovered a piece of video footage that brings the same feelings. They should play it at the end of every news bulletin or every depressing documentary.

The video in question stars Otto the bulldog, who has made his way into the Guinness Book of Records this week after breaking the record for the longest human tunnel travelled through by a skateboarding dog.

Otto, tongue lolling out, makes his way through 30 pairs of legs before being triumphantly hailed at the end and held aloft like he’s the FA Cup. It’s brilliant.

If you set that video to the tune of Tijuana Taxi, then all the bad things in the world will go away.

Try it yourself!

I’M not usually one to bang on about the weather, much, but we’ve been hit by some stormy weather this week.

I go out running three or four times a week and I can stand all kinds of weather, but wind really gets on my nerves. It’s almost never in my favour, always in my face, and because I’m 6ft4ins and quite a broad-shouldered lad, aerodynamics is not my strong suit.

To counter the wind, I decided to employ a tactic used by a pal when we were in primary school. He once claimed that he turned his coat over his head in a windstorm and was blown across the school field into his back garden.

I gave it a whirl while out running on Thursday night. It didn’t work. And when I turned a corner and the wind was at my face, I couldn’t zip my jacket up and the whole lot filled with wind, sending me careering backwards as if I had a parachute attached to me.

My mate was clearly telling porkies, unless he had developed the airborne skills of Iron Man at the age of ten. He still maintains he managed it. I wonder if he can still do it. Maybe he could get into the Guinness Book of Records.