Winifred Atwell’s Grave

Being home for Easter is an opportunity to catch up with family, both the living and the dead. And today we visited a few cemeteries around the area, including Memorial Garden at South Gundurimba, about fifteen minutes drive from Lismore. It’s a small cemetery “in the middle of nowhere” with not many graves at all. […]

Fikar

Aside from the excitement of Melodifestivalen, it’s been a weekend for catchups. Thanks to my long-term involvement in the world of ABBA fans, I’ve met some really great people over the years. I’ve also met some dickheads, but you learn to avoid them after a while. Thankfully, the good outweighs the bad. And this weekend, […]

Gott Nytt År

Having previously braved the sometimes drunken crowds at Sydney’s nine pm and midnight fireworks, I’ve concluded it’s sometimes just as good to watch them on a television, which is what Graeme and I did last night. In common with previous years when we have gone out for a drink on NYE, we had only one […]

Dancing Queen

I’ve never really quite got the exercise thing. As a child I was never really very good at sport as I struggled with hand-eye co-ordination. I was okay at tennis and hockey, and not bad at orienteering, but generally speaking sporting ability has never been one of my strengths. To be honest, the last time […]

Meeting Mikey and Melodifestivalen Gallery

As noted here and here, I enjoyed a terrific weekend catching with some current and former members of ABBAMAIL/Village, and watching Melodifestivalen with an assortment of Swedophiles, friends, and one Swede. With thanks to Graeme, here are some photographs from the weekend…

Nice Bloke

Due to my long-term involvement in the “ABBA Fan Community”, I’ve met people from all over the world. Last year for example as I travelled around Europe I met Marco and Sandra in the Netherlands, and caught up with David (France) and Gustav (Sweden). It’s a part of my life which, I guess sounds a […]

ABBAMAIL Ends

A dozen years ago I was part of a fairly dysfunctional and heavily moderated mailing list for ABBA fans run by a bloke called James Preston. Although the vast majority of organised “hard core” ABBA fans are gay men there’s also a large number of fans who feel somewhat uncomfortable with that reality. When one […]

Stockholm Pride – Day One

As soon as I saw his name in the program, I headed straight for Pride Park. I’m talking about Carl Magnus Palm, the author of six books about ABBA, including “Bright Lights Dark Shadows”, the definitive ABBA biography to date. Oddly enough, the book has never been released in Sweden due to a range of […]

Sardine Sunday

So far I’ve managed to avoid “Sardine Sunday”, as they’re calling it: the day when there are half a dozen major events happening in Sydney, including the Mardi Gras harbour party, the arrival of two cruise ships and cricket at the SCG. I don’t have the television switched on, but I can hear the cheers […]

Long Weekend

Do you know how hard it is to buy a screw driver in Surry Hills on a Sunday morning? I woke early yesterday, and while having a cup of coffee and reading email, my computer went bung. The floppy disc had failed, and so I wasn’t even able to reboot it. Needing to remove the […]

Eurovision Countdown

It’s Sunday afternoon and I’m in the midst of cleaning my house ahead of tonight’s Sydney ABBAMAIL Eurovision Party. I’ve lost track of the number of parties I’ve hosted, but it must be six or seven by now. I missed a couple of years, though, due to extended stays in Darwin and Perth. And one […]

Catchup

It’s Sunday evening and I’ve just woken up from a late afternoon nap, at the end of several busy days. It comes at the end of a few days in Newcastle (work-related) which was both enjoyable and hard-working. I enjoyed, though, catching up with some of the many people I only ever talk to on […]