In brief: Streep does it on Abba’s shagpile

Oscar-winning actress Meryl Streep, who stars in the cinema version of the Abba-inspired musical Mamma Mia, has talked about her experiences recording the film's soundtrack. "There we were in the recording studio where the group recorded Dancing Queen in the 1970s. And I was standing at the same microphone that Agnetha [The Swedish group’s blonde singer] had used and I swear to God no one had changed the shag carpet from the 70s"... Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich is planning to stand down from his post as regional governor Chukotka, the grim eastern Russian province, a job that was given to him by his friend Vladimir Putin... Father Michael Seed, the Roman Catholic priest who used to serve mass to the Blairs, had an interesting encounter with the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, the other evening. According to one witness, Seed rushed up to him and grabbed the pectoral cross around his neck, and said: "This looks like something you found in a cracker"... A rare recording of singer Tom Jones singing in a lavatory is to go under the hammer at Christie's. The reel-to-reel tape, made two years before Jones's breakthrough hit It's not Unusual, is his earliest-known recording... The convicted fraudster Samuel Israel III has turned himself in to police in Massachusetts after faking his own death nearly a month ago. Israel had abandoned his car by the Hudson Bridge with the words "suicide is painless" written on the hood - but failed to convince police that he had killed himself. He is due to start a 20-year prison sentence for defrauding investors of $450m... Contrary to widespread reports, there are no plans for a big-screen version of Friends with Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer and the rest of the gang…