Why We Still Love ABBA

Governments come and go, sterling rises and falls and the human heart grows colder and more cynical.  Thank goodness then for ABBA.

 

Since the first bouncing strains of Waterloo won Eurovision in 1974, through the heartrending emotional mini operas of The Winner Takes it All and Knowing Me, Knowing You through to the mesmerising, hypnotic refrain of The Day Before You Came, the Swedish quartet have been a constant presence in our lives — and always for the good. So what if Thank You For The Music is a little cheesy and Does Your Mother Know? is, er, rather disturbing, it would be a strange life that didn’t have a little space for Bjorn, Benny, Anni-Frid and Agnetha. No wonder then the Ulster Hall in Belfast was packed on Saturday night when one of Europe’s top ABBA tribute bands played.

As soon as the opening bars of Voulez Vous rang out — ‘People everywhere, a sense of expectation in the air” — people took to the aisles and boogied like, well, it was 1977 all over again. The sheer number of ABBA tribute bands shows the strength of public demand for their music and the nostalgia that goes with it. The band has famously turned down offers of up to $1bn (£0.66bn) to reform, remaining adamant that they want fans to remember them in their heyday. However, in an interview with the Times last week Bjorn and Benny dropped a tantalising hint the band may yet reform.

Dracula Creator’s Relative Seeks Dublin Memorial

The Victorian Gothic novel Dracula is associated with the dense forests of Transylvania rather than the Georgian squares of Dublin, but the great great nephew of its Irish born author thinks that is an oversight.

In time for the centenary of Bram Stoker’s death, which will be in 2012, Dacre Stoker has begun work to raise money to erect a memorial to his ancestor to join the statues and plaques commemorating Dublin’s many other writers, such as James Joyce and Samuel Beckett.

“It’s an oversight. There is no permanent memorial in his home city to this guy,” Dacre Stoker, who lives in South Carolina, United States, told Reuters by phone.

Bram Stoker was born in 1847 in Dublin, where he lived until he moved to London when he was 31.

He attended Trinity College before working as a civil servant in Dublin Castle and as an unpaid theater critic for Dublin newspapers.

Today’s Top Eurotastic Song By Johnny Logan

Hold Me Now is a song composed and performed by Johnny Logan from Ireland.  Logan won the 1987 Eurovision Song Contest with this song.

This song holds the distinction of being one of the very few self-composed songs to win the Contest, and is regarded by many fans as one of the high points of Contest history, recently being voted the third-best song in Eurovision history – behind Waterloo and Nel blu dipinto di blu.

After Logan had been proclaimed the winner, he was so overcome with emotion that during the reprise and was unable to reach the song’s high notes.  As he had when he won in 1980 with What’s Another Year?, he shouted “I still love you, Ireland”.

Throughout his career, which spans four decades, Logan has issued no less than 40 singles and 19 albums.  He has continued his love of participating in musical theatre, having toured Norway with Which Witch, an opera-musical originating in that country.  

Logan continues to perform and write songs.  In 2007 he advertised McDonald’s Eurosaver menu in Ireland and he sang A State of Happiness, advertising the Dutch Center Parcs.  In 2009 he performed in the celtic rock opera Excalibur.

Logan lives in Ashbourne, County Meath, Ireland.

Irish Pubs Face Hard Times

Ireland’s famous pubs and pints are reeling from their worst year yet, a report found — and the really bad news is it does not guarantee an end to drink-related social and health problems.

Against the backdrop of deep recession and unemployment, Ireland’s per capital alcohol consumption fell by 9.6 percent in 2009 and is now 21 percent below an all-time peak in 2001 when Ireland’s economy was booming.

“It was the worst year for our industry in living memory,” Kieran Tobin, chairman of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland (DIGI), told a news conference in a central Dublin pub.

Pubs have been closing at the rate of around one a day, he said, and 15,000 jobs had been lost across the sector over the last 18 months.

Last year’s drinking decline follows a 7.7 percent decline in per capital consumption in 2008, while in volume terms consumption declined 8.9 percent in 2009 after a 5.9 percent drop in 2008, the report by Anthony Foley of Dublin City University Business School for DIGI, which represents the on-trade — pubs, hotels, restaurants — and off-license sector.

Eurovision 2010 Update: Ireland Goes With Niamh Kavanagh

Former Eurovision winner Niamh Kavanagh is to represent Ireland at the 55th Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo in May.

The winning song – It’s For You – topped both the public televote and regional jury vote on Ireland’s Late Late Show.

Niamh Kavanagh first won the Eurovision Song Contest held in Millstreet in 1993.

She will now compete in the semi-final on Thursday May 27 for a place in the grand final on Saturday May 29.

Today’s Top Eurotastic Song by Niamh Kavanagh

Here’s Niamh Kavanagh of Ireland singing the ballad In Your Eyes:

In Your Eyes was the best selling single in Ireland for 1993.  It also reached No. 24 in the United Kingdom weekly pop charts.

The song won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1993 for Ireland with 187 points. The song was written and composed by Jimmy Walsh.

Kavanagh had a home win, since the contest took place in Ireland due to Linda Martin’s win the previous year.  It was the second of Ireland’s three Eurovision victories in a row in the early nineties.

School Asks Pupils To Bring Own Toilet Paper

Irish parents struggling to buy schoolbooks and uniforms in the face of a deep recession may now have to worry about sending their children to school with a toilet roll as well as a packed lunch.

Pupils at a primary school in the southern county of Cork are being asked to bring their own toilet paper to school to help save money, one of the starkest examples yet of the death of Ireland‘s “Celtic Tiger” economy.

“The letter was sent out just as a way of balancing books here in the school and not intended as a demand,” said Catherine O’Neill, principal at St John’s Girls National School.

O’Neill said the request was made because of cuts to government grants for books and computers. She added that parents were responding well.

“I’ve done a quick tour of the classrooms this morning and I’d say at least half the pupils have brought them (toilet rolls) in,” she told national broadcaster RTE.

“I have no doubt that there are an enormous number of schools out there that are doing the same thing.”

At Long Last Ireland To Assign Postal Codes

Ireland plans to assign postcodes to each home in about a year’s time, becoming the last European country to do so, in the hope of giving western Europe‘s worst performing economy a small boost.

The once-booming ‘Celtic Tiger’ has been seeking ways to improve competitiveness and stop multinationals moving more production to lower cost centres such as in eastern Europe.

“We’re the only country in Europe which doesn’t have a postal code … and we like that in a nostalgic way,” Communications Minister Eamon Ryan said.

“But the reality is it’s not efficient and it doesn’t work well,” Ryan told public radio RTE. “We need to move to a new digital economy, postcodes are part of that.”

Proponents say postcodes would not only make mail delivery more efficient but would also help other businesses that rely on the exact tracing of goods in the export-reliant Irish economy.

“There are a lot of corporations internationally who would be very anxious to piggyback on the back of the new system once it’s in,” said John Whelan, chief executive of the Irish Exporters Association.

Greetings From The Emerald Isle

Your Daily Andy Editor-In-Chief is off for a few days.  Publication will resume on March 30.

Happy St. Partick’s Day From Ireland

An estimated 500,000 Irish people, immigrants and tourists lined up along a parade route in Dublin to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day — a national holiday dimmed this year by an economic recession and rising violence.

Ireland faces its sternest economic challenges in decades. Unemployment has soared above 10 percent, the government is imposing severe tax increases and cuts to combat a budget deficit, and the national mood is struggling amid rising emigration and violence.

Cardinals and bishops emphasized that the island’s 4 million Catholics must pray on St. Patrick’s Day for an end to Irish Republican Army dissident attacks that claimed three lives this month in the British territory of Northern Ireland — and an end to drug gang feuds in Dublin that have left eight dead this year.

“St. Patrick’s Day provides a moment to reflect on the fragility of our times and our future — if we place our trust in egoism and self-centeredness,” said Catholic Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin.

He called for everyone on the island “to send an urgent and unambiguous message that as one community, north and south, without distinction of belief or of political allegiance, we are united against anyone who takes the path of violence.”

The parade is the climax of the six-day St. Patrick’s Festival.