Might the pop songs of Abba make me into a better person?

AS readers know, I disapprove of parties and dancing, believing them corrupters of the soul and signposts to moral degradation. Accordingly, I wouldn’t have liked to work at No 10 Downing Street.

The endless demands to partake in social events would have dispirited me, and my refusal to join in would have seen me thought peculiar.

In addition, I’ve never understood the appeal of Abba, whose music was a theme of one of the parties. Some of the Swedish outfit’s tunes are quite catchy, I’m told, if you concentrate and really listen to them. But, in general terms, it’s just bubblegum pop, not the kind of music to which the busy and important man of affairs can devote much time.

Once, it’s true, I was dragooned into attending a performance of

Abba: The Musical. Come to think of it, in a foolish lapse of judgment, I organised this, as a birthday party present to someone. It was in London, at, I believe, the Palladium. Describing these details to you now, when I am a recluse communing with the birds, trees and sea, I begin to wonder if I was hallucinating.

Perhaps, in reality, I took the dear lass to a prog rock concert in Troon. I did once take her unwillingly to a three-hour long Star Trek film in, I think, York. To sweeten the event, I treated her to a slap-up meal beforehand. Unfortunately, the food was rich and, what was worse, I was persuaded by wicked cosmic forces to inhale a small vat of wine to accompany it. As a result, I dozed off at the cinema as soon as the lights went down, and the poor lass had to watch the inter-galactic proceedings, in which she had little interest, on her own.

To return to Abba, as much, I think, to their surprise as anyone’s, they became a worldwide cult, which isn’t really the word. True, they were, and are, worshipped. But their followers are not coerced into so doing. They do do of their own volition, and I’ve observed that the band attracts quite a nice brand of person, paying their rates on time and giving their whole-hearted support and encouragement to whichever government is in power at any time, just as I do.

As such, doubtless at Downing Street I’d be the disposable schmuck dispatched with a suitcase to smuggle in the drinks, as was the practice lest observing lieges took umbrage.

Oddly enough, by force of circumstances, I’ve been off the drink for five days, and came to regard it as a dreadful poison. Released from my incarceration, I even demurred when I discovered there was a Hibs game on the telly that

evening, an event that only the bravest can face without strong sustenance at their elbow.

But it’s the drink that undoes people at parties. Oddly enough, I tend not to drink much on the rare occasions when out socially because I know, from toping copiously in the privacy of my

own home, that

I’m likely to start talking rubbish

(at home, to myself) and getting into fights (at home, with myself or my Lord of the Rings mantelpiece figurines).

Perhaps cheery nonsense such as the pop music of Abba lifts a chap’s mood, and means they just have a good time and don’t get morose. I find this difficult to envisage. Do you think if I listened more to Abba, and less to Gentle Giant or Spock’s Beard, that I could become a better person?

And, if I became a better person, could I get a job at Downing Street? I doubt if I’d be good at policies, still less at dancing. But I could probably be trusted to go down to the Westminster Co-op and fill up a suitcase with plonk.

The joy of gloom

I have actually read a couple of novels by the Russian writer, Jimmy Dostoevsky, and while I remember litte detail about them, I did enjoy the authentic atmosphere of gloom, nihilism and despair. It made a change from Star Trek adaptations and cowboy novels.

Now we’re told that sales of the existentialist classics, including Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground, have risen dramatically in Britainshire, due to an increased interest in angst and pessimism.

Kevin Birmingham, author of literary biography The Sinner and

The Saint, said: “The appeal is that Dostoevsky’s view of human nature seems more apparent now: we’re irrational, egoistic, and selfdestructive.”

This is correct though, like everbody else, I do not think it applies to me. Just to everybody else. I’m rational and empathetic, though you could make a case for my being selfdestructive. I still support Hibs.

Dr Birmingham added: “Readers of Dostoevsky’s novels wouldn’t be surprised by global affairs of the last several years. These are all Dostoevskian. There is an abiding fear that there are no foundations, no ultimate sense of truth or justice …”

Yes, I have felt this at times over the years but, deep down, I believe passionately that there is an ultimate sense of truth or justice. The evidence is there, in the Star Trek adaptations and cowboy novels.

TOMORROW: RAB McNEIL ON PARA HANDY