Only snobbery stops ABBA being ranked with the Beatles and other editorial opinion from home and abroad

Abba: the debate rages - London Sunday Telegraph

ABBA have announced they are reforming to record new material, and fans are deliriously happy. So they should be. The Swedish pop group was one of the greatest bands of the 20th century, and only snobbery stops them being ranked with The Beatles. The harmonies were exquisite, the music innovative and the lyrics mostly comprehensible. Debate still rages, however, over whether in a verse of Super Trouper, Anni-Frid Lyngstad sings “All I do is eat and sleep and sing” or “All I do is eat and sweep and sing”. The mystery deepens when instead of calling her lover from Glasgow, she appears to say, “I was sick and tired of everything/ When I called you last night from Tesco.” Some believe the song is the lament of a pop singer exhausted by life on the road, prefiguring Abba’s split in 1983. Others say it’s about a bored shelf-stacker. The answer is found in the chorus: “Super Trouper/ Beans are gonna blind me.” If one stacks tins of baked beans too high, it’s an accident waiting to happen.

What's the deal? - The Territorian, Darwin

WHY do cyclists have a right to use both the road and the path? Riding a bike is a good thing. It keeps you fit, it’s good for the environment and it costs a lot less to run than a petrol and maintenance-hungry car. But cyclists need to decide whether they belong on the road and therefore should follow the road rules or belong on the path and should follow pedestrian rules. You can’t do both by weaving on and off the footpath and then go to the front of the queue at stop lights when it suits. Be predictable to motorists, be safe.

Macron deserves credit for global vision - The Observer, London

Macron, whose first anniversary in office falls next month, made a splash in Washington partly because his youthful self-confidence (he is still only 40) appeals to a country where energetic brashness is counted a virtue. But there were other, more substantive reasons. One was recognition that Macron is a leader who knows what he believes in. Another was the evident fact he is ready to fight for it.

 Stopping the S-300 - Jerusalem Post

Russia’s S-300 surface-to-air missile platform is one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world. It is for that exact reason that Israel and the United States have worked tirelessly over the years to prevent its delivery to Iran and why Israel is now working to stop it from getting to Syria. The real question concerns Russia’s intentions and why it recently announced its intention to deliver the system to the Bashar Assad’s military. ...
Russia should not be allowed to get away with whatever it wants in Syria. US President Donald Trump has already accused Vladimir Putin of responsibility for allowing Assad to gas his own people, but he needs to keep the pressure on the Russian leader to stop the delivery of the S-300. It is in Israel’s interest that Syria be stabilized, but it is in the world’s interest that weapons do not proliferate to terrorist groups and terrorist regimes. Giving the Syrian military the S-300 achieves the exact opposite. The world needs to act now to stop that from happening.

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