I MEET MY WATERLOO IN A DARKENED ROOM

I spent a beautiful sunny afternoon yesterday sitting in a darkened room. And enjoyed every minute of it. That’s the beauty of being self-employed – you can take half a day off occasionally in the week, sneak off somewhere with a lovely lady, and not get into trouble.

I took Mrs N to the flicks to see Mamma Mia! The Movie. There were just 20 of us in there, and 19 of us appeared to remember Abba from their Waterloo days. I wouldn’t say we were old, but our mission was to see the film before the schools broke up and you couldn’t move for kids eating popcorn from buckets and speaking a strange language believed to be derived from English.

Everything that’s been written about Mamma Mia is right: it’s a girly film, very cheesy, and the blokes can’t sing for toffee. But it’s great fun, a true feelgood movie, and you come out with all those fabulous, ridiculously catchy songs floating round your bonce. And what’s wrong with that?

Meryl Streep is superb, Julia Walters is as off-the-wall as ever, but the score is the star. In its own way, Abba’s music is up there with the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Stones, Dylan.

And that was the only drawback of sitting in a cinema with just 19 other people. Not one of us had the guts to sing out loud, even though we all wanted to. I may have to buy the DVD. For Mrs N, of course.

Benny and Bjorn, thank you for the music.