The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Sound of history repeating
Being an old person, I still find it rather strange and odd that this country seems, in many respects, to be incredibly backwardlooking and riddled with the idea that the past was so much better than the present. We can’t look forward for looking back.
I suppose every generation is like that, because what we have to deal with every day and what we have to look forward to, regardless of the era in which we live, is scary in the extreme. Even if it might be regarded as challenging in an ultimately positive way, you have to fight your way through an awful lot of old tosh to get to the faltering light of day these days. Character-forming it may be but by the time you’ve coped with all the carry-on, much of it inflicted from on high, it feels like one’s character is not so much formed as set in concrete. Hopefully with the right kind of cladding.
The current younger generation might well have a point when they point to us oldies and say: ‘they have never had it so good as we did’. Although I have to say that, at the time, it didn’t seem so bloody marvellous to be going through the three-day week, strikes, union bashing/union domination, the telly going off at 6pm, refuse riddling the streets, winters of discontent, interest rates going through the roof, Black Fridays and more than one election per year. That bit, perhaps, has yet to come in 2017 but it certainly happened in 1974 when I was, just, too young to vote. History repeating itself? We never, ever learn. Or at least, some of us don’t. And it is, perhaps, our own damned fault if we keep voting for them.
So I was riveted, in a peculiar kind of way, to find out about an exhibition that is going on show in Brighton as we speak. Brighton, you may or may not know, was the scene, back in the aforementioned year of 1974, of one of the great and formative cultural experiences of our time.
It was then that ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest with that annoyingly catchy ditty, Waterloo, one of the two greatest pop creations of all time to feature a major historical figure, if you don’t count Vincent by Don Maclean.
ABBA’s central figure was, of course, Napoleon, who, as you might recall from the lyrics of Bjorn and Benny, did surrender. Unlike that other momentous pop icon of the 70s, Ra-Ra-Rasputin, who, it seems, “drank it all and said: ‘I feel fine’.” According to Boney M, it was a shame how he carried on and who, with the antics of Vladimir (Ras) Putin in mind, can argue with that incisive piece of political analysis? Oooh, those Russians…
Any road up, it seems to me that the Brighton exhibition featuring the Scandinavian songsters, aptly headlined Super Troupers, has much to tell us about our present state, even if only in the titles of their greatest hits. Think about it. Apart from the possibility that more than one member of the current establishment might be finally facing their Waterloo (and not a moment too soon, many would argue), what about S.O.S? Money, Money, Money? Or, if you are viewing this from the other side of the Irish Sea, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme?
How could the Brexit negotiations ever be completed without a blast of Voulez-Vous or, given the way our negotiating team is caving in and conceding at even this early stage, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do? We would, of course, be having no truck with those continental interlopers, Fernando and Chiquitita.
After his triumphant Glastonbury gig, Jeremy Corbyn must surely be boning up on the lyrics of Take a Chance on Me or, in the final assessment, The Winner Takes It All?
Never say that popular culture has nothing to offer by way of serious comment on the way we live now.
I do draw the line at Dancing Queen, however, even if a simulacrum of QE2 will go down in history for parachuting into the 2012 Olympic Stadium and hob-nobbing with James Bond. Her Maj has more than enough to cope with at the moment without donning her symbolic EU titfer, as modelled for the Queen’s Speech, and inviting Angela Merkel onto the floor for a spirited rendition of The Slosh.
All this could, of course, also explain why so many (male) MPs are ripping up the fabric of society as we know it and casting aside their sober neckwear with gay abandon; it’s all in preparation for a mass mosh down the division lobby.
Again, however, a line must be drawn when it comes to alternative attire. As someone who would quite happily see banned forever those awful coloured shirts with white collars, the thought of Jeremy Hunt or Tom Watson doing an ABBA in a shiny white jumpsuit (not the same one, obviously, for the sake of public order and decency) does fill one with a nameless dread.
Mamma mia!