I�m being stalked. Stalked, I tell you! By The Girl From Ipanema.

I believe that my initial encounter with my stalker was sometime in 1978, or whenever the episode of The Muppet Show featuring Petula Clark aired, featuring an appropriately muppet-ised version of the song with the lyrics changed to �The Boy for Ipanema�.

Ever since then whenever I hear that bossanova beat I get vague visions of a giant orange Muppet floating around to the song � though I did have to look up an episode guide to determine who the guest star actually singing the lyrics was.

It�s one of those songs that gets stuck in my head the minute I hear the tune. Which occurs fairly often in elevators and other bastions of muzak. I�m never quite dancing to the rhythm, but often it takes days to get rid of it.

During my recent trip to LA, it only became worse. The song actually started following me around and appearing when I least expected. First, it musak�d away in a mall or a store somewhere, maybe even an airport lounge on my journey over. I don�t remember specifically where it was, but driving one afternoon I discovered it had lodged itself in my head. Do, do-do-do, do, do, do, do�

Goddamn it! Get out.

Then we dropped into The Dresden Room not that late on a Friday night, and somewhere before their admittedly energetic version of Staying Alive, Marty and Elayne took a moment or two to comment on the tall and tan and young and lovely girl from Ipanema, and there was virtually no chance of getting the song out of my head.

Thankfully the version in my head was generic and didn�t feature Elayne�s unique �vocal stylings�.

The following day we were pottering around the house, baking, cleaning and generally preparing for the cheese party. I was do, do-do-do, do, do, do, do-ing around the kitchen for most of the morning, many people going �ahh� in my head. I was occasionally moved to throw in a little dance step here or there when no one was looking - a bit of samba as I reached for something in the fridge.

At some point Frank turned on the CD player, just going with the six disks already conveniently stacked in there, and after attempting to samba with some progressive rock the girl was eventually chased out of my head by Thom Yorke and his friends.

But not one to go away quietly � or at all � my stalker returned a mere couple of disks later in the form of a particularly jazzy version of the song by a torch singer type. As soon as it started up my face fell and Frank was forced to flee the room for fear of my loosing it entirely as I my lips involuntarily started to form the first �do� and my foot started to tap.

Thankfully Dada returned from Target shortly afterwards with a bag load of $8.99 CDs she felt were party appropriate: Duran Duran, Billy Idol, Blonde. It was a perfect �80s cacophony and I have never been happier to hear Hungry Like the Wolf.

The girl never fully goes away though. Whenever my mind is still she loves to just jump in there with no prompting whatsoever and I find myself humming hmm, hm-hm-hm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm and tapping my foot for a full rendition of the song before I�ve ever realised the stalker has popped up again.

I also mistakenly told Betty about my stalker and she now randomly sends me emails which just say �do, do-do-do, do, do, do, do�. These actually don�t have much effect on me - I�ve been stalked, I can withstand a lot more than just the odd bossanova email - but I suspect may mean the girl from Ipanema has worked her magic on Betty who is now going �ahh� in a slightly deranged fashion in a corner somewhere and can only communicate via garbled bossanova beats.

Which means that my work here is done.