Mikory's ABBA-blog

This blog has been nominated!

I'm very happy to announce that ABBA Plaza has nominated Mikory's ABBA-blog, together with nine other fantastic ABBA sites for the best ABBA site of the year 2005.

If you want to vote for this site I'd glad if you click on the picture below and cast your vote:

Thank you,

Mikael :)

God Jul/Merry Christmas!

I would like to wish all of you who visit my blog a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Thanks for all the help and encouragment this year.

As you can see in my Christmas card I tried to take a picture of Santa, but he was in such a hurry, all I got was a picture of his hat... :)

Update on Agnetha's "new man"

In Expressen today the identity of the man Agnetha was seen with a couple of days ago is revealed. His name is Bertil Nordström and he is 61 years old. According to Expressen he is very close friend of the Swedish king. The king and queen of Sweden are godfather and godmother of his children. Bertil is divorced now and living with a new woman. He is not very happy with the previous article in Expressen.
     - This is not a fun thing for me. You will have to speak with my lawyer, Bertil says to the newspaper.
A "friend" (always these friends...) says the following about Bertil's night with Agnetha:
     - He and a couple of friends went there (to the Plaza Club) to have a beer. Agnetha arrived with three girl friends. He talked to her a little and they danced.

Seems to me Bertil was caught doing something his new woman wasn't happy to hear about. The picture above show Bertil and his first wife at their wedding in 1976 with the king and queen attending.

Frida 4xCD 1xDVD, my first impressions

Yes! Now it's finally here. And I think it's very interesting. I have watched most of it, but only one time as I'm saving it until Sunday when a fellow ABBA-fan is coming over so we can share the experience. Anyway, about the DVD, which contains 3 hours and 25 minutes of Frida,  I really like the following:

• Stand By, 1970, these three jazz songs are in fantastic quality. I had never seen any of it, not even a snippet. It's in black and white and Frida looks good singing with the big band. But more importantly she sounds fantastic. What a voice! The three songs alone would, IMHO, be worth the price of the box set alone.
• The new interview and everything she has to say about each clip is amazing to hear. Hearing her talk about her life is fascinating.
• The fact that all clips are complete. When this DVD was first announced I was scared that it would only have snippets of the clips and that Frida (or someone else) would be talking over them. Didn't happen, thank God.
• The little story by Theodor Kallifatides describes Frida in, what I think, a very true way.
• The fact that Frida several times points out the importance of Stikkan Anderson. Not like the rest of the group who nowadays seem to be doing some "Russian re-writing" of history. Frida also mentions him in her foreword.

Then of course there are some things that could have been better.

• The quality of Lite Grand I Örat. Not much better than what we have on vide. I guess it's true that SVT has erased the original tapes. It looks like they have tried to do something about the picture but it has only made it blurry. But still, they deserve to be on the DVD.

• The SGO documentary "Frida Solo" doesn't look that good either, the colour are really bleak. I doubt it's from the original tapes. But it's a very important piece of the Frida history.
• The art work of the box and the menus on the DVD (they've used the morphing pictures in the menus of the DVD). I really don't like it. The idea is not bad but it seems to me it should have been worked on a lot more. I mean there are so many nicer pictures they could have used. I think time was a huge factor, or at least I hope so.

I don't want to write much more about the DVD right now, I know that there are a lot of you who hasn't got it yet and some won't get it until early next year. It's definitely worth waiting for though. I hope Universal will market it in some way. So far I haven't seen anything in the papers or on TV. The pictures here are of course from the booklet, click on them so you are able to read the text.

Agnetha partying with new man

Agnetha was spotted at the restaurant Club Plaza in Stockholm last night. The following article comes from Expressen. Nice to see her enjoying herself. And she looks good!

Here is Agnetha partying last night. The ABBA-star was dancing very closely to an unknown man late until the early hours of the morning. At the Club Plaza in Stockholm the shy world star broke her isolation.
The usually shy Agnetha Fältskog was enjoying herself in the crowd. The star openly showed her feelings for her new friend, an unknown middleaged man. The two danced closely together and kissed in front of all the guests at the crowded restaurant.

SAT CLOSE
Agnetha and her new friend sat close together. The star was holding his hand for a long time. It seemed like the ABBA-star never wanted to leave the wild party with her friends. The guests at Club Plaza, which used to be the famous club Alexandra, in central Stockholm, became witness to a sensation.
     Agnetha Fältskog has been isolating herself for a long time in her house on Ekerö. She lives alone, rarely goes out and always has a body guard with her. At the opening of "Mamma Mia!" i February, which was supposed to be an ABBA-reunion, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid wasn't able to even speak to her. Agnetha was hiding with her body guard next to the stage, she didn't go inside until the lights were out and she lifted her hands to cover her face. As soon as the show was over she fled to the waiting limousine.

THE OBJECT OF LOVE TERROR
The reason for her behaviour was Gert van der Graaf who Agnetha earlier had a romantic relationship with. In 2000 the Dutchman was sentenced to leave Sweden and a restraining order was issued after he had been stalking his idol with his tragic love terror.
     - I have been robbed of my freedom for over a year. He has been watching me everywhere, standing waiting on my driveway, going through my mailbox, Agnetha has said describing what happened.
After that she has been scared to death to go out. Until last night. She ended the evening with dancing to the romantic ballad "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston. The couple was among the last to leave the restaurant just after three o'clock this morning.
BY ÅSA ASPLIND JILL SJÖLUND

Agnetha, the party girl and Frida and Benny's hair ad

I've been going through my pictures and found some old ones I almost had forgotten about. Aren't they great? Look at Agnetha, how happy she was. And Frida and Benny making some much needed extra money posing as models for "Hårspecialisten", a company that sold shampoo and other hair products.

Click on the pictures to see a larger version. More pics available in the different photoalbums. I hope you will enjoy them! I will keep adding as I go along searching through my collection.