Remember Agnetha from Abba? She called me last night from Glasgow. Actually, that wasn’t her. It was my cousin Agnes.
Those two are easily confused. Agnes is a smasher, a blonde with a great voice and a real party animal. And Agnetha used to be.
I took Agnetha out for dinner once. I bumped into her a few years later. She said: “No regrets. If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend. For a Nando’s.”
What’s a Nando’s? Up here in Stornoway, that’s like what we call it when your granny is getting ready to bake bread.
Back in the real world, 40 years of jolly music and what do we get? Holograms. Abba Voyage, the digital recreation of the Swedish pop legends, will perform in concert next year. In other words, Abba will not perform. Introducing the computer-generated imagery is so we won’t see how old and wrinkly they are. It would do them no harm at all. I mean, look at me.
Not everyone is being digitally enhanced. Abba had various drummers over the years, some no longer with us, sadly. Some of the others are not answering the phone as they are retired, and that is how they wish to stay. After all, if a drummer comes out of retirement, will there be repercussions?
“Holograms will just be a short-lived, headline-grabbing novelty. The plug will be pulled soon enough and Abba will, once again, vanish
The Abba main quartet are all between 71 and 75 now. So what? A couple of them didn’t look that great in 1979. We want the music – give it to me. We want Abba – wrinkly, grumpy or whatever. Everyone gets old and forgets why they’ve picked up a microphone, probably. Holograms will just be a short-lived, headline-grabbing novelty. The plug will be pulled soon enough and Abba will, once again, vanish.
How to vanish a sirloin steak
Which reminds me that The Vanishing, the movie based on the Flannan Isles mystery, is on this weekend. Starring Scots actors Gerard Butler and Peter Mullan, it tells how three lighthouse keepers were apparently washed away in 1900. Or maybe not. The log book recorded a fierce storm. It must have been very localised because the curtains in crofters’ blackhouses in the nearest village of Islivig in Uig on Lewis, just 20 miles away, hardly flapped.
It was released a couple of years ago but other events have diverted us since then. The fillum, which is how we pronounce the word movie in the offshore north-west, was mostly shot in Portpatrick, so purists will scoff. Most reviewers, however, say it tells a story well. A story, not the story. I don’t expect it to be factually accurate, as fillums are entertainment, not News at Ten. It’s on Film4 at 9pm on Saturday, if a thriller loosely based on a real-life Hebridean unsolved mystery takes your fancy.
Wait, what about our readers in Australia? I have found the New South Wales TV guide. Ah, Southern Cross Central GTS/BKN channel is showing the semi-final 2 of Glenelg v Eagles. Nice of you guys to cover Scottish shinty. We appreciate it so much that Crocodile Dundee was on a film channel here three times last week.
You know what takes my fancy right now? A steak.
“That’s not a steak knife.” Dundee unsheathes a huge blade. “That’s a steak knife.”
Has Oor Andrew taken the huff?
OK, enough Crocodile. My doctor keeps telling me to eat less red meat but the thought of a sirloin is making my mouth water. Do vegetarians experience the same effect when they mow a lawn?
Now another mystery. I’ve just read that Andrew Neil has quit the awful GB News channel he has been the invisible chairman of. He performed his own vanishing act when he disappeared off to France after what seemed like five minutes on screen. Now that his baby has, like a flickering hologram, become the Nigel Farage Channel, more people are actually tuning in. Has Oor Andrew taken the huff?
It’s official: I have resigned as Chairman and Lead Presenter of GB News.
— Andrew Neil (@afneil) September 13, 2021
Many years ago, I took the huff when a crowd I was with decided we should end a night out in London by traipsing to an upmarket – that means expensive – club that was having an Abba-themed special night. It was new then and everything was so sparkly, with the familiar muzak piped everywhere. Too much.
I shall always remember how difficult it was to find the toilets, which were at the end of a narrow winding corridor with many exits and cocktail rooms off it. It was like a maze.
What a loo. Couldn’t escape if I wanted to.