SILence would be golden

Earworms. Sounds like a David Cronenberg film, where a tiny subterranean creature burrows through your grey matter, while humming the soundtrack from Glee.

Fortunately the worms gnawing away at your grey matter are simply tunes by the likes of Lady Gaga, Maroon 5 and Katy Perry. Sorry, did I say “fortunately”?

Happily, boffins are on the case for when that toe-tapper becomes a brain-basher as 90 per cent of us suffer from the parasitic pests.

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They found that Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance was the most common curse, ahead of Kylie Minogue with Can’t Get You Out of My Head, which should really be number one for its title alone.

But the big question is, how do you get rid of a earworm? Apparently, by humming God Save The Queen – though it’s unclear whether this is the national anthem favoured by a Tory MP as the shutdown music for a post-Brexit BBC, or the Sex Pistols version which Newsnight 
recently opted for.

Of course, there’s danger of a new refrain taking root, but help is at hand – seems Tina Turner’s pallid team-building anthem Simply The Best can oust an earworm without 
becoming lodged in there itself. Leaving, we assume, golden silence. Well, until Gaga comes on the radio again…