Hello dear reader. Today I have a few thoughts on a very large question – do we need music? “I was born with music inside me. Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart. Like my blood. It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me – like food or water” – Ray Charles I am with Ray Charles; music is necessary in my life. I don’t need to hear it all hours of the day but when I need it, I really need it. I sound like an addict and maybe I…

Hello all Apologies for my absence of late. I was recovering from a surprise dog bite to my right hand which made typing painful and slow. On the plus side I learned a valuable lesson: hands in the air around a dog! I shall be visually demonstrating absolute and total surrender to our canine companions for the near future. Today I have been working on more earworm studies, after a day in and out of the media yesterday. Our group helped to make a documentary about the ‘tune in your head’ phenomenon (earworms) for BBC radio 4 over the last year and it was finally broadcast yesterday. You can catch…