2008: FABB FOUR GET THEIR OWN MUSEUM

News bulletin! The world's first ABBA museum will open in Stockholm in 2008. The museum will feature a plethora of gold discs, memorabilia and original costumes documenting the most fantastic musical group to ever grace the Earth, and will be one of Stockholm's biggest tourist attractions. The former members of ABBA, Agnetha Fältskog, Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Anni-Frid Reuss issued a joint statement saying, “it’s great that someone feels like taking on our musical history and making it accessible.” Read the press release and learn more about this long overdue tribute to the legendary Swedish band who changed the face of popular music forever and became the second largest selling pop group in history. Perhaps the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame will now sit up and take notice of Frida, Agnetha, Benny and Björn's massive contribution to the history of music.

Analysis of a Literary Friendship

Praise the Lord! A brand spanking new Harper Collins biography (not yet available in Canada), called The Friendship: Wordsworth & Coleridge, by Adam Sisman, re-examines the greatest friendship in the history of poetry. The Scotland on Sunday newspaper review leaves me wanting more, so guess I'll be watching the film Pandaemonium, starring John Hannah and Linus Roache, tonight.

This lime tree bower my prison

As I live and am a man, this is an unexaggerated tale - my dreams become the substances of my life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

KRISTINA IN ENGLISH

At long last, we now have a sample of an English version of "Du Måste Finnas" called "You Have To Be There," from the musical Kristina, courtesy of the Kritzerland website. Kristina is expected to open on Broadway in 2007, after years of playing to packed theatres in Sweden. All going according to plan, BennyBjörn (as Frida lovingly calls them) will then have two successes playing simultaneously on Broadway.

"Never before have I questioned the truth of your being,
never once have I dared, never until today,
All of a tremble I stand on the edge of confusion.
Who's to save me, into the darkness I fall

Now that I need more than ever my God to be near me,
Do you hear when I call? Are you there after all?
You have to be there, you have to,
My life I have placed in thy keep, and without you
I am drifting on a dark and stormy sea..."

(Andersson/Ulvaeus/Kretzmer)

And in the beginning, God created...

Credence

And when to the heart of man
was it ever less than treason,
to go with the drift of things.
To yield with a grace to reason
and bow and accept the end
of a love or a season.

Robert Frost

Sonnet 94

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

William Shakespeare

Super Boys M.I.A.

Following on the heels of Crossroad Blues (this season's best episode yet), the next new episode of Supernatural is scheduled for December 7th. The episode is called Croatan, and of course stars series' regulars and hottie extraordinaires, Jared Padalecki (left) and Jensen Ackles. It's going to be a dreary couple of weeks without new episodes of our boys to warm up Thursday nights...

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMarilyn

Lessons from beyond the grave

Set the foot down with distrust on the crust of the world - it is thin.

Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Going for Gold!

ABBA Gold has emerged as the 5th biggest selling album of all time in the UK. This puts their 1992 compilation streets ahead of rock legends Pink Floyd, the Rolling Stones and the Who. In Britain alone, Gold has sold 4 million copies. And the second-greatest band in history, Queen (it's my blog, I can say what I feel) took top honours in the UK Chart Company's exhaustive poll. This will go a long way to proving once and for all that the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame is insane for not recognising ABBA's contributions to popular music.

The Goddess Celebrates

Happy birthday to Anni-Frid Lyngstad, who turns 61 today. Her irradiant light continues to brighten my world as it has done for over thirty years. God bless, princess.

A thing of beauty is a joy forever

One of my closest friends on the planet just sent me a copy of the new BBC drama The Line of Beauty on dvd. He assumed that I would like it, given our mutual admiration for, well, almost everything. Walking home in the rain last night after a blissful massage, I was expecting a quiet evening at home, watching mindless television whilst blethering on the phone. Instead, I began to watch this '80s timepiece of a mini-series, proclaimed by The Independent to be "a Thatcher-era Brideshead Revisited... intelligent, properly grown-up drama." I was immediately enraptured and stayed up late to see it all.

Maybe it was the attention to '80s detail, the clothes, the Duran Duran soundtrack, the family drama unfolding outside the Tory cabinet offices, the cocaine-sniffing, the mood swings of the manic-depressive daughter of a supposedly faithful Tory MP, the orchestral manoeuvreing in the dark London parks (ahem), or maybe it was just good television. Oh, and did I mention Alex Wyndham?

Pure heaven.

"What fresh hell is this?"

The Homebody

There still are kindly things for me to know,
Who am afraid to dream, afraid to feel-
This little chair of scrubbed and sturdy deal,
This easy book, this fire, sedate and slow.
And I shall stay with them, nor cry the woe
Of wounds across my breast that do not heal;
Nor wish that Beauty drew a duller steel,
Since I am sworn to meet her as a foe.

It may be, when the devil's own time is done,
That I shall hear the dropping of the rain
At midnight, and lie quiet in my bed;
Or stretch and straighten to the yellow sun;
Or face the turning tree, and have no pain;
So shall I learn at last my heart is dead.

Dorothy Parker.

The Life to Come and Other Stories

No, this is not a review of E.M. Forster's short story collection, but rather a vision of the future as it shall be: me and my fair love, who oddly enough shares my passion for all things Wordsworthian and daffodil-esque, moving into our own little white cottage deep in the heart of the Lake District. It might even be Dove Cottage, but I wonder how one would accomplish that?

I can see it all. We walk the circumference of Grasmere Lake in the crisp morning, meet friends down the local pub for lunch, stop for afternoon tea at the Wild Daffodil Tea Shop after shopping for fresh farm eggs and cream, and retire for the evening, just the two of us, in front of a glowing fireplace, surrounded by our beautiful library of poetry and incunabula. It's going to happen. I can just feel it.

Sagacity from a Legend

Due to increased demand, I republish the words of wisdom spoken by the immortal Emma Peel in her final episode of The Avengers:

"Always keep your bowler on in times of stress, and watch out for diabolical masterminds."

With age comes wisdom, I guess.

Need another reason to tune into SN?

Need a reason to tune into Supernatural?

Ghosts and Ghouls in Glorious Glasgow!

Not content with having one brilliantly written paranormal series on television, yours truly is now hooked on the BBC's Sea of Souls, filmed entirely on location in glorious Glasgow. This gripping series, starring Bill Paterson, Dawn Steel and Iain Robertson showcases a team of supernatural investigators battling many of the same ghosts, demons and poltergeists our rough and tumble Winchester boys come up against on a weekly basis. Okay, so the "hottie" factor is not quite as evident (though Craig is a wee belter), but there is great chemistry nonetheless.

It is refreshing to see how architecturally resplendent Glasgow looks in this programme (but then, when is Glasgow *not* the epicentre of Scottish style and elegance?), and of course the acting from the Scots cast is top notch. The most recent episode broadcast on BBC Canada last night featured the ever-charming John Hannah in the role of phoney psychic turned faith healer. Sea of Souls is every bit as spine-tingling as Supernatural - check it out in the dark if you dare, but make sure you're not alone. You wouldn't want to scare yourself to death now, would you?

Not such a material girl after all

Never been a fan, but I have to say the woman's gone up in my estimation:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,4-2006510560,00.html

Our Queen of Hearts Will Never Be Forgotten

Happiness is a warm gun

Frustration

If I had a shiny gun,
I could have a world of fun
Speeding bullets through the brains
Of the folk who give me pains;

Or had I some poison gas,
I could make the moments pass
Bumping off a number of
People whom I do not love.

But I have no lethal weapon-
Thus does Fate our pleasure step on!
So they still are quick and well
Who should be, by rights, in hell.

Dorothy Parker.

Better than chocolate?

"It might be kind of a relief to be finished."

The lovely Marilyn. Will we ever know what happened after she made this comment to Life magazine on August 3, 1962? I do know. And here is the greatest revelation of them all, for those who think they know me well: she killed herself. And I don't blame her. Her life was over, she was past her prime, she was not as beautiful as she was, her looks were fading, her deceitful lovers abandoned her, she couldn't sleep without a cornucopia of sleeping pills, she needed alcohol to suppress the pain; she just couldn't rise above it anymore. She fooled her faithful friends some of the time, but I know she cried herself to sleep every night. She had been hurt too much by those she loved and trusted. The heart is a delicate organ, and it can only take so much rejection.

Bless her for trying as long as she did to con all of us into believing she was filled with rapture to be alive. She's an inspiration to me and I still believe she was strong to have carried on as long as she did. I hope I encounter her spirit in everlasting peace in another realm.

THE GODDESS FINDS A NEW PRINCE CHARMING!

There's hope for all of us. The most beautiful woman on the planet is, allegedly, getting married:

"According to the latest rumours published in the Swedish weekly "Se och hör" on November 1, Frida is going to marry her boyfriend earl Raoul Hamilton. The Swedish King and Queen Silvia will be among the guests invited to the wedding. Earl Hamilton owns the castle Ovesholm in southern Sweden so it is quite possible that Frida will move back to Sweden after 24 years abroad." (www.raffem.com)

Nobody deserves happiness more than this remarkable woman.

The Winchester Chronicles

This Thursday sees our Supernatural heroes Sam & Dean Winchester battling the ghost of the very first serial killer. The demon-destroying Winchester boys are still coming to terms with their father's death (depicted in emotional conflicts running through each episode), but judging from the trailer for this week's episode, the boys don't have much time to deal with such emotions. Watch the brand new episode of Supernatural this Thursday at 9m on City TV to find out if the Winchester dudes exorcise the hell out of that demented ghost.