Mika: The Boy Who Knew Too Much

Mika is, apparently, a singer. His second album is now entitled: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much." Personally, I find this irksome, for reasons which should be obvious.

I shall explain.

Someone arrived on my blog, today, searching for "Mika The Boy Who Knew Too Much"...so, naturally, I did a search, myself, on Google, to find out just who this Mika was - since I had never heard of him, before. It turned out that Mika who was born Michael Holbrook Penniman, is a 26 year old singer in the early stages of his career (he didn't come to notice until 2007). It also turns out that his second album is called: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much".

Now, I find this galling for two reasons. Firstly, it is not the original name for the album. The album was meant to be called: "We are golden", after the first track on the album. Something prompted him to change the name, recently - something which may, very well, be my blog. Secondly, I was irritated to find much praise, on his fan site, for the "originality" of his title...some of the commenters were going overboard on how "original" this Mika fellow is. Well, I don't see originality, in this particular instance...I see that my blog started before Mika's entire career.

I have never heard a Mika song. I don't know if he is much good. I know this, however: this boy, Mika, only knows enough to take his titles from elsewhere. Imitating a blog title does not constitute an act of originality, despite what his fans think.

On another note, however, it is interesting to see how the phrase: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" is becoming much more frequently used since I started this blog. The phrase was used, after Michael Jackson's death, in an article by Ann Powers of the Los Angeles Times. The same phrase was actually the title of the reprint of that article in The Age, Australia. Independent origination of the phrase is possible, but I think it is more likely that it was the influence of my blog that prompted the use in this article for one good reason: I actually wrote a couple of posts about Michael Jackson, subsequent to his death - and any journalist doing research into MJ is likely to have found them, since my blog is highly ranked and appears high on listings in most Google searches.

Anyway, Mika is based in London. It is of note that the Daily Telegraph, in the UK, wrote of my blog and mentioned it specifically, by name: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", in a large article, this year. So, it is very likely that Mika was personally aware of my blog and its title. So, to those fans who think he is being "original" in his use of this title...err not so. I have been using it for years. It seems to me, that he is just trading on the familiarity of the name I have created over the past few years, to increase his album sales.

By the way, I can't help but notice that he uses the word "boy" an awful lot, for a male singer. Track titles on the album, "The Boy Who Knew Too Much", include "Toy Boy" and "One Foot Boy". You can draw your own conclusions.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to:http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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Why: "The Boy Who Knew Too Much"?

It seems from some of the comments I have received, over the months, that the meaning behind my blog title is not as universally understood as I would like. To clarify a little I am going to post a copy of a comment in response to one puzzled commenter:

"The title of my blog is meant to capture the sense one gets on talking to Ainan that no-one could possibly know so much. It is not meant to propose the idea that he should know less. Naming a blog can be tricky since words may be misinterpreted, or read in ways other than intended. Ainan "knows too much" only in the sense that he creates in a listener the sense that what he does is somehow bordering the impossible...for how can one so young know so much? That is what I wanted to relate.

My title is not giftist - it is a title written from wonder - though I see how it could be misread."

So, my blog title is meant to evoke the wonder that comes from speaking to Ainan, when he chooses to speak his mind. It was never intended to suggest that he be diminished in any way. Thus, it cannot be said to be "Giftist" (a word of my invention, recently).

I hope that answers anyone who has taken exception to the title.