All in All

There was a rather turgid waste of time on BBC2 the other night on about how "Euro" we are (I took the test on their website and it will come as no surprise tio anyone who knows me that I came out as a very pro-eurpoe Mr Chiantishire). Anyway, they were doing all this what makes us different and all the usual's came out like we don't have a total shut down at lunchtime for a couple of hours, and they have longer licensing laws and are not innundated by loutish binge drinkers apart from British tourists, and it made me think.

A few years back a Swedish friend was round at my flat going through my record collection and was amazed at the cover on Abba's "The Album" because the top of it was blue, fading into the white, whereas the European version was plain white (I know, doesn't take much to amaze some people but there you go). Then he looked at the cover of Abba's Greatest Hits, volume 1.

This is it above, if you can imagine it gatefolded in the middle. Admittedly this is a rather strange cover for a group just about to go mega-global. They were sold as two couples, but the front part of the cover had Bjorn bored and reading the paper and Agnetha looking lost and in a stroke of genius with falling leaves on her (I have mentioned their lack of copy control on photoshoots before). Anyway, this is nothing compared to the cover of the Swedish/European version on the right (still haven't worked out how to add a picture lower in the blog, I'm afraid).

Words cannot describe this painting. Why they thought it summed up their first couple of years as a supergroup is beyond me.

Maybe I should subscribe to "This England" after all.