Ghost Mail Weekender

Happy Sunday Voornaam,

Have we got any ABBA fans in the audience?
Even for those who are not fans of the 70s supergroup’s brand of earworm pop (like our resident Ghost, who would rather watch reruns of Allan Donald dropping the bat than suffer through Mamma Mia!), it doesn’t take much imagination to conjure up an image of what they look like - and that image almost always involves a combination of dungarees, rhinestones, platform boots and ludicrous amounts of fringe.
For years, ABBA fans assumed the group’s outrageous outfits were all about standing out - expressing their individuality, their brand, their unmistakable ABBA-ness. But it turns out there was another, far less glamorous reason for all that glitter.
According to a 2014 biography, those over-the-top costumes were less of a fashion statement and more of a tax strategy. As Björn Ulvaeus himself put it, "In my honest opinion, we looked like nuts in those years. Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were." The key was for the outfits to be so ridiculous that no one could possibly wear them in regular life (imagine doing your weekly grocery shopping dressed like Agnetha - no thank you). This distinction made ABBA’s outfits deductible as "work expenses" according to a Swedish tax law. In other words, the crazier the bottoms, the better it was for their bottom line.
The teenagers in the front rows of those ABBA concerts may have been going mad for Benny’s dungarees, but nobody loved them more than his tax guy. “Money Money Money” indeed.
In case you're too young for ABBA, here's a video to show you what dedication to deductible expenditure looks like.
For a palate cleaner in an effort to save your view on Sweden, here's one of Ghost's favourite ever adverts. If you're a parent (and even if you aren't), maybe reach for a tissue before you watch this one. Take a bow, Volvo:

On the subject of brands that make you feel things, Dominique Olivier has written a selection of short stories about companies doing the right thing. In a profit-motivated world, it's possible to make this world better while staying true to commercial objectives. From Savlon's soapy chalk to Honda's vibrating shoes and Energizer's bitter batteries, let this story motivate you to apply your mind to things that last.
After covering meatballs at IKEA last week (Dominique seems to have Sweden on the brain), you can read on for her story of sausages at Volkswagen. For dessert, the Fast Facts are a selection of bizarre last meal requests. Ghost Mail Weekender is many things, but it's never boring!
Have a lovely day!

The Finance Ghost (follow on X) | Dominique Olivier (connect on LinkedIn)

Short Stories v.05: Ideas for good

Saying goodbye is the wurst

TL;DR: For some reason, an unexpected number of car manufacturers also make food items. Is there some sort of link between the automotive and culinary arts that we’re missing here?
In last week’s opinion column, Dominique wrote about how IKEA used meatballs to lure customers into spending more time in its stores (in case you missed it, you can bite into that tasty story here - apologies in advance for any meatball cravings you may develop in the process). This week, she was shocked to learn that IKEA isn’t the only business with an odd food-related side hustle.
Earlier this year, Volkswagen made the announcement that it was starting to phase out Product Item No. 199 398 500 A. Any regular person reading this would assume that the company was going to stop making a particular type of fuel pump or perhaps a cambelt. Only a small number of people would understand that this means that Volkswagen is going to stop making sausages.
When did they start? In 1973, apparently. Product Item No. 199 398 500 A (is there a more German way of naming a sausage?) is a proprietary currywurst, made and served in the cafeteria of the company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg. By 2019, Volswagen employed a kitchen staff of 30, most of them trained butchers, who were making 18,000 sausages every day. In 2015 and 2017, Volkswagen made more sausages than cars.
Here we were thinking that VW was a car company that also makes sausages, when at some point in recent history they were actually a sausage company that also makes cars!
The pork was sourced from local farms, and the recipe, which included curry powder, pepper, and ginger, was a company secret. The finished product was shipped in packs of five to VW dealerships all over Germany, who then gifted it to customers after a successful sale. How did customers know that they were getting the real deal? Well they just had to read - each sausage featured writing on its casing which read “Volkswagen Originalteil”, or “Volkswagen Original Part”.
As weird as this story is, Volkswagen can’t even claim to be unique in its culinary adventures. Over in Italy, Fiat has been making and selling chocolates - and they’ve been doing that since 1911! That was the year that the car company held a contest between Italy’s chocolate companies with the goal of releasing a confection to celebrate their new “Tipo 4” model. The winning chocolate, the Fiat cremino, is still sold today, more than a century later.
As for Peugeot, they actually made household goods before they made cars. Some 15 years before Peugeot made its first foray into the automobile industry, it took the world by storm with its distinctive design for a pepper grinder. If you have a curvy pepper grinder with a twisting mechanism in your kitchen cupboard today, you have Peugeot to thank for that.
Lastly, there’s the crown of culinary awards, the Michelin star, which of course originated from the same company that makes and sells all those tyres. Dominique covered that interesting story in depth here, in case you want to go back and refresh your memory.
What’s the apparent connection between food and cars? We’re not quite sure, but so far this is the most surprising thing we’ve uncovered in 2025. What is still to come from the depths of the internet?

Dominique's fast facts:
Bizarre last meal requests

An assortment of facts that will only take you five minutes to read.

In 1990, James Edward Smith requested a lump of dirt as his last meal. His request was denied. He settled for a cup of yoghurt instead.

​In 2000, Odell Barnes Jr. requested justice, equality and world peace. His request was not granted.

In 1936, George W. Barnett requested “the largest steak in town”, but did not eat it. After his execution, a reporter who had been there to document the proceedings saw the steak in the prison kitchen and helped himself to it.

In 2011, Lawrence Russell Brewer requested two chicken fried steaks with onions and gravy, a triple bacon cheeseburger, a cheese omelette with ground beef, a large bowl of fried okra, half a kilogram of barbeque chicken wings, three fajitas, a Meat Lovers pizza, three root beers, one tub of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream and a slab of peanut butter fudge with crushed peanuts. His request was granted, but when his meal arrived he refused to eat it, stating that he was not hungry. This incident is believed to be the reason why the State of Texas stopped granting last meal requests.

In 2002, Robert Anthony Buell requested and received a single, unpitted black olive.

In 2007, Phillip Ray Workman declined a special meal for himself, but asked instead that a large vegetarian pizza be given to any homeless person in Nashville, Tennessee. The prison ultimately denied his request, but word got out about it and it was fulfilled by several volunteers across the country.

In 2010, Ronnie Lee Gardner requested lobster tail, steak, apple pie with vanilla ice cream and a bottle of 7 Up. He also requested to be allowed to watch The Lord of the Rings film trilogy while eating his meal.