Mary's Australian visit continues

Photo © News.com.au

Yesterday Crown Princess Mary was seen in Hobart having lunch and doing some selective shopping with sisters Jane and Trish and friends. Today Mary left Hobart and flew to Melbourne for a connecting flight to Adelaide, where she was driven to friend Amber Petty's apartment, arriving around 1pm. Reported plans include a reunion of shared friends from Sydney for Amber Petty's 40th birthday party. Happily Mary does appear to have enjoyed a quiet and private (at least from us) day in Hobart on Wednesday, with just a photo glimpse of her farewelling visitors at sister Jane's house during the morning. There have been short items on commercial evening news programmes this evening about Mary's departure from Hobart and arrival in Adelaide which have not been posted on media websites - maybe the last day of the Australian election campaign has something to do with that. B.T. is carrying a story that Australians are 'surly' about Mary's visit based on comments posted on newspaper websites (you can read them from the links to stories here if it takes your fancy). B.T. quotes some of the comments. Fortunately the sometimes bizarre ramblings of many of these posted comments are not representative of most Australian's view of Crown Princess Mary based on evidence elsewhere and certainly in this blog's experience. On the other hand, Billed Bladet reports that people who have encountered Mary on aircraft and local Australian media generally are remarking on the lack of a 'baby bump'. A midwife is quoted explaining that Mary's muscle fitness and height explains why the pregnancy is not yet very visible (based on a story in Se og HØR). Se og HØR writes of the privacy laws in Tasmania which prevented the press from being as invasive as they have been on previous visits (the amended law was introduced last year primarily to deal with people filming children in playgrounds and other public places and using the material inappropriately). It writes passengers noticed the Danish Crown Princess, who sat and read a Danish book, and travelled with a Danish bodyguard. One older female passenger is quoted saying, "She seemed like a totally normal woman. She looked beautiful, but I didn't see a baby bump."

The latest from The Adelaide Advertiser is that Mary was greeted by Amber Petty at her apartment building, while her security detail checked in at an adjacent boutique hotel. According to this report the 40th birthday celebration for Amber will be black tie tomorrow night (Saturday local time).

August 19:
The Mercury - Mary ventures out and about
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) - Our meal with our Princess - meeting Mary for lunch
and replicated in all other News Ltd masts: The Courier-Mail, Adelaide Now, Perth Now, The Herald Sun, The Mercury
News.com.au gets the guernsey for most amusing headline: 'Lunch for three please! Mary takes bump for mammoth meal'



August 20:
ABC News - Princess Mary heads to Adelaide
The Sydney Morning Herald - Party princess jets in
The Herald Sun (Melbourne) - Princess Mary of Denmark stops off in Melbourne on way to Adelaide
The Mercury - Mary charms city with ease
ABC News - Princess Mary touches down in Adelaide
Digital Spy - Princess Mary: 'It's lovely to be home'
Sky News - Princess Mary thrills home town
The Adelaide Advertiser - First pic of Princess Mary's arrival in Adelaide (updated).
The Daily Telegraph (Sydney) - Tug of home strong for Princess Mary



Photos © News.com.au, Zimbio/PacificCoastNews.com, SMH/Getty, DayLife/GettyImages, Trevor Pinder/Herald Sun, news.com.au/Sam Rosewarne, News.com.au/NikkiDavis-Jones

News.com.au gallery
The Mercury photo gallery
Network 7 clip : The Morning Show (3:59) - August 19

Latest on the christening...

Low-key christening rehearsal at Fredensborg - Lillepigen and Christian exit stage left

We already know this christening is more low-key than Christian's (less than half the size), but there is confirmation today that none of Mary's siblings will be there on Sunday. Jane Stephens and Patricia Bailey will be at home in Hobart and Mary's brother John is at work in his job as a geologist in Western Australia. Mary's father and step-mother will attend

Royal guests will include Crown Princess Victoria, Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit. We also know there will be many of the closer family royals among Princess Benedikte's and Queen Anne-Marie's children. And, it is not pushing it too hard to speculate there will be a strong contingent of Frederik's and Mary's friends

It is thought about 140 guests are invited, but there are not many details until the christening. We will post the guest list, information about the service, church decorations and Bishop Erik Norman Svendsen's sermon when we can. They will appear on the court websites during the christening (links to both on the left navigation bar here)

The weather forecast for North Sjælland on Sunday is fine but cloudy and a daytime temperature of 22C, winds look as if they'll be north westerly

DR reports that the 35,000 or so people expected to be travelling on buses in the metro area on their way to their summer house needn't miss out on the news of Lille prinsessens name. The drivers on duty are equiped with radios which will be used to transmit the news to the passengers the moment it is made public at the christening!

The Municipalty of Århus will give Lilleprinsessen a playhouse sized copy of Marselisborg Castle in a ratio of 1:10 (3.8 metres x 1.7 metres and 1.85 metres high).

The playhouse (above) will be made of environmentally sound materials. The entrance will be between the two towers and the roof can be opened too, so that grown-ups can get in more easily. The playhouse is designed by Alice Rosborg, the city architect for the Århus Municipality

The Marselisborg Palace playhouse to be - a gift from Århus Municipality

The Sønderborg Municipality will give Lille prinsessen a gift she can use when she is visiting Gråsten Palace each summer. It is two little chairs, Peter model designed in 1944, and a little table made by the furniture designer Wegener. They hope the set will be placed at Gråsten Palace. The set is also a kind of construction toy because each chair has four parts which can be put together without tools.

From the Danish Pottery Museum comes a miniature cup and porridge bowl made by potter Lisbeth Kring Jensen (article in Danish Melfar Posten)

And another gift story from Ballarat via Sydney. The North Shore Times reported on a purchase for Lilleprinsessen 'Plush plaything posted to princess at palace'. The rams are pretty in pink!

Here's something fun - this is a link to panoramas of Fredensborg Palace and inside the Palace Chapel where the christening will take place. You need QuickTime to use the zooming panorama feature (zoom in with SHIFT and out with CTRL or hold down left mouse button and move right hand over a laptop mouse pad). The NR-photos are by Hans Nyberg.

This DR Prinsesse theme page has links to Margrethe's, Frederik's, Felix's and Christian's christenings (scroll down the page a little). Danes can get the name of Lilleprinsesse just after it is announced SMSd to them from a link on this page. So many bases are being covered it is hard to imagine a Dane who will not know the name within seconds of it being uttered!

DR.dk video clip (1:48) Guess what? there is a strong princess theme in Fredensborg
DR.dk video clip (0:30) Fredensborg in princess mode for the 18:30 news credits
TV2 video clip (2:20) Every little girl in Denmark seems to be a princess
DR.dk video clip (1:54) about the making of the Tasmanian gift to Lilleprinsesse

From The Sydney Morning Herald Danes guessing on name of Mary's baby

From news.com.au Punting on name for daughter of Princess Mary

Sydney's Daily Telegraph has a 22 photo 'Fred & Mary' gallery

And here is a royal baby collection of photos (TV2 is running a competition of opinions on who is the fairest of them all!) - TV2 historical royal babies gallery it begins with Christian X (for whom the christening robes were made in Belgium) as a baby with his mother Alexandrine, Frederik IX in the most unfortunate, erm, sailor's dress with his father Christian X standing directly behind his chair, poor Frederik IX again 'decorated' with a large frilly hat (he must have had a few laughs over those photos as an adult!), then Margrethe with Christian X, Frederik and Joachim, Nikolai and Felix, Christian and Lilleprinsesse.

Added:

The Sunday Tasmanian/The Mercury 'Danish royals keep mum'

Danish reports are that the press accreditation has been a bit of a bun fight. Had Frederik and Mary accepted all applications for accreditiation, the press alone wouldn't fit into the chapel, let alone the guests. B.T.'s Bodil Cath says the emphasis has been on it being small. On an Australian TV news this evening she indicated that maybe all Australian women are named Sheila or Kylie! Jyllands Posten reports on the press numbers too. Only a small number of the press who applied for accreditation got it, including just one photo-journalist from Australia

According to Jyllands Posten the Australian Embassy in Copenhagen will give Lilleprinsessen a selection of original Australian children's books as a christening gift on behalf of the Australian government. Great precedent! Christian got an original edition of the 1918 May Gibbs classic Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

Lillepigen will receive Hazel Edwards" There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake and Jackie French's wonderful Diary of a Wombat based on a real wombat in her garden, among other books.

Webcasts

A note for our readers: both networks in Denmark (DR1 and TV2) have extensive (hours!) of coverage planned. In addition NRK in Norway will have a live broadcast which they usually webcast and leave on their site to watch again afterwards (how nice!). We anticipate that we will post webcast links from all three of these sources, so bone up on your Danish and Norwegian! Just come here if you are unsure where to find links and you will find them here.

The coverage will begin very early in Denmark with morning shows on both networks, from 7:00am on DR1 and from 8:30am on TV2 (after B1 and B2 come down the stairs to catch you unawares! - the Australian toddler's favourite Bananas in Pyjamas, and 2 - does Christian watch?)

Here is a link to the World Clock time converter so you can calculate times for where you live. The broadcasts will be roughly for 5 and 6 hours with the arrival of guests from 10:30am and the christening itself until around 1:00pm. For east coast Australians and then the other time zones, it will be late afternoon and early evening. Seven and Nine Networks are promoting coverage of some sort (with reporters there) but neither are live. As with Christian's christening, SkyNews may show it live if you have cable. For those around the globe who will be fast asleep, there will be plenty of video clips to see later from Danish and Australian television and plenty from the print media too. It will be hard to miss it!

Mary's new coat of arms

Ronny Andersen's Coat of Arms designed for Mary, now hanging in Frederiksborg Palace Chapel.

From Billed Bladet (no. 20, 18 May 2007) comes news and information about the new coats of arms which have been designed and executed by Ronny Andersen to represent Crown Princess Mary and her father Professor John Donaldson. They each have the coats of arms because all holders of Danish Royal Orders require coats of arms for display in Frederiksborg Castle Chapel. Five days before her marriage Mary received the highest Danish order, the Order of the Elephant, and, her father John Dalgleish Donaldson was given the Order of the Dannebrog. The crests are now displayed with the crests of all other holders of the orders in the Frederiksborg Castle Chapel (part of the Museum of National History). In 1693 Christian V converted the church into a Knights’ Chapel for the two Danish orders: the Order of the Elephant and the Order of the Dannebrog. The shields bearing the coats of arms of holders of the two orders hang on the interior walls of the gallery of the Chapel and on the walls of the spiral staircase towers.

Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg's crest has now been moved from the royal section to the section of non-royal holders of the Order of the Elephant. Alexandra's father's crest (like John Donaldson he received the Order of the Dannebrog upon Alexandra's marriage to Prince Joachim) is in the section for holders of the Order of the Dannebrog, as is John Donaldson's. When Frederik becomes king one day, Christian, the new little princess and any other children of Frederik and Mary will have their crests added. It will be interesting to see if the children have elements from their mother's side (Australia and Scotland).

From Billed Bladet by Anna Johannesen and kindly translated by Muhler – Here is Mary’s crest:

“It’s about the greatest achievement you can aspire to,” says the 27-year-old Ronny Andersen proudly, while he looks up at the Knights Chapel (Ridderkapellet) at Frederiksborg Palace. Here Crown Princess Mary’s crest has just been hung and Ronny is looking forward to seeing it in place because he designed it, just as he is also the master maker of the crest given to her father. The two crests are Ronny Andersen’s debut as a royal painter of coats of arms and he has worked on them for a year and a half. During that time the sketches have been presented for both Crown Princess Mary and John Donaldson in Kancellihuset and at Århus University.

“We thoroughly discussed how the crests should be designed. The Donaldson family has its roots in Scotland and as that is a country with particularly strong heraldic traditions and with strict rules in that field, everything had to be in perfect order,” says Ronny Andersen, who lives and works in Esbjerg.

Crown Princess Mary received the Order if the Elephant on 9 May 2004, five days prior to her wedding to Crown Prince Frederik, and on the same day her father became knight of the Great Cross of the Order of Dannebrog. That means that in accordance with the regulations of royal orders of knights that they must have a crest with their coat of arms and a proverb hanging on the wall in the chapel of the royal orders in Frederiksborg's Palace Chapel. Crown Princess Mary’s crest is historical because no crest belonging to a Danish crown princess has been hung there previously, and it does not have a proverb either.

The writing on the edges of the crests in the Knights Chapel is traditionally in Latin, but as the title “crown princess” does not translate directly to Latin and as there is no precedence among the existing crests, the text ended up being: Mary, Princess of Denmark, the wife of the Crown Prince. (Written in Latin naturally: Mary Principissa Daniae Regni Heredis Conjux Die IX Maji an MMIV.)

During the work on Mary's and her father’s crests, the wish had been that their coat of arms should be as close to what it would have been in Scotland, but that they also contain some very personal elements from the Donaldson clan. That John Donaldson associates himself with the MacDonald clan was clear at the wedding of the Crown Prince Couple, where he wore the kilt of the MacDonald clan and in his speech to the bridal couple at the dinner in the evening, he also referred to the history of the clan (link to John Donaldson's speech).

There is a red double eagle, over which there is a black galley with oars and a silver flag on both crests, but where Mary's has a gold rose between two seven pointed gold stars in the blue part of the shield at the top, her father's has the mathematical sign for infinity. This is a reference to his work as a mathematician and it has the proverb “Ad Infinitium” which means “Towards Infinity”.

Ronny Andersen has painted Mary’s as an alliance crest, joined with the crest of the Crown Prince. There is a tradition for this type of crest in regard to women who have married into the DRF. The coat of arms is crowned with the special crown prince crown specified by Christian V in 1693.

Crown Princess Mary’s crest is hanging between the crests of the Crown Prince and Prince Joachim. They each got theirs on the 14 February 1972 on the day their mother was proclaimed Oueen of Denmark. Above theirs hangs the crest of Prince Henrik and on top the crest of Queen Margrethe.

Explanation of Frederik's Coat of Arms (with meanings of symbols)
The Coat of Arms from The Danish Monarchy site, and also
The Royal Orders of Chivalry



1) Mary's Coat of Arms 2) John Donaldson's Coat of Arms, 3) John Donaldson's crest 4) the royal crests as they hang in Frederiksborg Castle Chapel, Queen Margrethe at top, Prince Henrik middle, Frederik, Mary and Joachim bottom.

And from Heraldry Australia comes their explanation of the two coats of arms (with thanks):

The Donaldson family is Australian of recent Scottish origin and it was decided to design the arms as closely as possible to Scottish heraldic tradition, while including symbols of a personal nature and references to Australia. Professor Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard undertook the research into the Scottish background, and based upon this he made several suggestions for the design of the arms. Ronny Andersen, Kongelig våbenmaler (Royal Shield Painter), then made suggestions to the Crown Princess and Professor Donaldson and their personal preferences were taken into account.
The basic design was the MacDonald eagle and boat for the Scottish ancestry and, in the chief, two seven pointed Federation Stars from the Crest from the Australian arms. More personal symbols were incorporated into the chief with Professor Donaldson choosing the infinity symbol as representative of his career as a mathematician (it corresponds with his motto as well) and with The Crown princess choosing the rose as her personal symbol. The red lion in Professor Donaldson's crest is derived from the Scottish red lion and also the red lion in the arms of Tasmania and Hobart.HA

Frederiksborg Castle Chapel and Frederiksborg Castle (scoll down):





1) Australian Coat of Arms 2) Tasmanian Coat of Arms 3) Hobart Coat of Arms.


TV Syd about heraldic artist Ronny Andersen - 'Maler våbenskjold'
TV Syd video clip (4:02) about 27-year-old Ronny Andersen's work
ARS HERALDICA Danish Heraldry
Heraldry Australia
Meanings Behind the Symbols (you might like to look up the two-headed eagle, the boat, the meaning of the extended wings, the meaning of the rose...)

A note: Frederiksborg Castle Church is where Joachim and Alexandra were married (18 November 1995) and where Baron Otto Reedtz-Thott and his wife Helle married on 24 August 2002. Frederik and Mary made one of their first public appearances together at the wedding, a formal event which royal watchers thought 'significant' at the time.

Also, Jane Stephens told Anna Johanessen in Hobart in November 2006 that the rose was their mother's favourite flower and Mary's also. Mary's sisters Jane and Patricia, with other family members present, launched an Australian rose named after Mary which has part of its sale price donated to the Tasmanian branch of the Australian Heart Foundation.

Danish royal roundup #12

The Queen takes a bow!

It is time to roundup the Danish royal news once again!

10 November 2006. Queen Margrethe presented the 2006 Ebbe Munck Prize at Christiansborg to retired Chief Police Inspector Kai Wittrup for his services to international UN police keeping.



14 November 2006. Queen Margrethe of Denmark was introduced as set designer of the ballet "Tolv med Posten" (The Mailcoach Passengers). The ballet is danced by amateurs from Susanne Heering's ballet school, where the Queen has been a set designer for the past 26 years. The ballet performed 4 shows in December 2006 at the "Hofteatret" the old Court Theatre at Christiansborg Castle. After the short season the Queen took a bow onstage with her friend Susanne Heering and the company. Susanne Heering's son Peter, daughter-in-law Caroline and her grandaughters also attended. Peter and Caroline Heering went on to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert with Frederik and Mary in the evening after their day at the ballet.

15 November 2006. Queen Margrethe of Denmark awarded the "Queen's Watch" to guard M.E.K. Madsen. The Queen's watch is awarded to a soldier from the Royal Life Guard who has been elected by officers and members of his company. Guard Mads Boye Rasmussen stood in the parade in his civilian clothes as he is on sick leave after being shot in the hand by accident during his watch at Amalienborg Castle.



17 November 2006. Queen Margrethe revealed at a press conference in Tivoli, Copenhagen, that her next job as a set designer will be at the Pantomime Theatre next year. The show will be the H.C. Andersen fairy tale "The Tinder Box".


B.T. Tivoli press conference
TV2 Dronningen og "Fyrtøjet" i Tivoli

Queen Margrethe's press conference B.T. webcast/localeyes (7:00)

22 November 2006. Danish Prince Consort Henrik hosts the royal hunt in Ledreborg some 30 kms west of Copenhagen. Friends and family were his guests including Prince Gustav and his girlfriend Carina who joined the men in the shooting party.

25 November 2006. Princess Benedikte of Denmark opened the Swedish Christmas Bazar in Copenhagen.

Queen Margrethe is to refrain from smoking in public. New laws introduced in Denmark mean the Queen is obliged to conform with healthy workplace regulations for those who work at the court and various palaces. Queen Margrethe, who is somewhat famous for smoking at every opportunity, has decided not to smoke in public again. The Queen caused some talk recently when she didn't smoke at Copenhagen University's Annual Party! The Queen's decision coincides with parliament's introduction of smoking restrictions by next year. There is a three year agreement by all political parties for new restrictions which it is hoped will change attitudes towards widespread smoking habits in Denmark. Queen Margrethe will continue to smoke in private. This leaves two smokers in the Queen's family, herself and Prince Joachim. All evidence indicates Crown prince Frederik has quit successfully and Prince Henrik gave up several years ago. Queen Ingrid smoked until her death at 90 and King Frederik IX smoked and died of lung cancer at 72. Another family member, Queen Anne-Marie, revealed in a 60th birthday interview with Billed Bladet that she had given the habit up some years ago.

No ifs or butts: 'Ashtray Queen' agrees to stub it out in public from Times Online by Roger Boyes "Queen Margrethe: denies having a “smoking problem....


Crown Princess Mary's cousin Jacqueline and her husband Brendan Johncock have been interviewed by Billed Bladet while journalist Anna Johannesen was in Tasmania recently. Brendan Johncock received a four month prison sentence for sexual assault last year. It cost Brendan Johncock his job, however, not his marriage she says. The affection of Jacqui and their two teenage children has only been consolidated after the case. Johannessen interviewed Jacqui and Brendan Johncock in their cosy South Launceston home for the first time since the experience. Johncock told Johannesen that it was the worst experience of his life but that it has made the family stronger and that they feel fortunate. Jacqueline is the daughter of Peter Donaldson, John Donaldson's older brother.

A note: There has been some inaccurate representation of this case in some quarters. There is no doubt it has been distasteful and unfortunate and we by no means condone what happened, but we do like accuracy. By a quirk of the uneven laws in Australian states as to the age of consent, this case would not have been brought in any states except Tasmania and South Australia. Justice Crawford pointed this out in his judgement (which is no longer online). Justice Crawford effectively said in his judgement that in most places in Australia what happened would not be considered a criminal matter (a reference to uneven age of consent laws), but he went on to say he had to punish in accordance with the law in Tasmania as it stands. He did say the girl was immature and confused but consented to whatever went on. The judge did not accept the account of events by the girl, saying her actions were consensual, although she was immature and confused. Justice Crawford demonstrated some understanding of Brendan Johncock's situation, but according to Tasmanian age of consent law the judge was obliged to give a custodial sentence and he also effectively said he had to make an example of Johncock because he was a teacher. Some of these circumstances explains why the family members were shocked by the proceedings. Such cases are often complex and difficult to understand when the reporting of them is via the tabloid viewpoint. Finally, for clarity, although initial charges were rather sensational, most of them were withdrawn and rape was not one of the final charges. Feel free to contact us if any further clarification is required, as it is a delicate matter to have on an open blog.

Billed Bladet (no. 50) has reported that Prince Nikolai was on a visit to the Royal Theatre to see Love in the Dustbin with his Krebs School classmates last week. Queen Margrethe had made the costumes and scenery for the production and was in the theatre the same day Prince Nikolai was there. When the Queen discovered Nikolai was present, she made arrangements to meet the children, who in turn were keen to meet Nikolai's grandmother.




Prince Christian gets an early and rather special Christmas present.
Danish Prince Christian's menagerie grows from The Raw Story

"Young Danish Prince Christian's menagerie has been enlarged further with the addition of an orangutang in Indonesia, reports said Friday. The Danish branch of the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation (BOS) said it had sponsored an orangutang in Indonesia as an early Christmas gift, news agency Ritzau reported.
The conservation group said the orangutang to be named after Christian, would continue to live in his natural habitat at a rehabilitation centre in Borneo.
The charity works with the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry for the conservation of orangutans and their ecosystem.
As a christening present, the 13-month-old prince earlier this year received four Tasmanian devils.
The dog-sized mammals, native to Australia's southernmost island where his mother Crown Princess Mary was born, were welcomed to Copenhagen Zoo last April...
© 2006 dpa German Press Agency

Mary's WHO Istanbul video link

Crown Princess Mary's WHO video link was shown in excerpt form in a story on TV2 about the problem of obesity.

What Mary says in the clip: The majority of us are not active enough and levels of activity continue to fall. And yet small changes, cycling to work, taking the stairs, walking to the shops, playing actively instead of watching television can make a big difference.... It is vital that we ensure that the environment in which our children grow up supports their health. Fundamentally that means making healthy food more available and giving children the space and opportunities tobe physically active.....As a parent, I want to make sure that my son receives the best nutritional start in life as possible. When Prince Christian was born, I was fortunate enough to be able to breastfeed, I am keen to encourage his natural curiosity for different tastes by building on the good start through a healthy, varied diet. I would like to see that when the time comes, that the school he will attend encourages healthy, nutritious food and drinks and plenty of opportunity for physical activity......

text Mary's WHO video speech



Right, Crown Princess Pavlos (Marie-Chantal) at the Ritz in London recently for a birthday celebration for Queen Elizabeth.

Telegraph.co.uk has reported, incorrectly as it turns out, that the Greek royal family was to sell family heirlooms.

The Telegraph claimed the Greek royal family in exile, stripped of almost all of its property after a coup in 1967, is to sell silverware and other heirlooms rescued from one of its palaces in the hopes of raising at least £2 million.
Christie’s announced today that it is to auction the treasures in London in January. The property is formally described as coming from the collection of King George I of the Hellenes, modern Greece’s first monarch, who reigned from 1863 to 1913. The Telegraph continued, the vendor, who refuses to be named, is almost certainly the deposed King Constantine II of Greece who has lived in London in relatively straitened circumstances for more than 30 years.....

The items that are being sold by Christies' do not come from Constantine and Anne-Marie. They were notified of the sale but they themselves don't know what is being sold. The Greek Royal Family response is that they are not the vendors and you can read their press releases on their website here:

Greek Royal Family deny The Telegraph report
news release concerning the Christie's auction

5 December 2006: Queen Margrethe has unveiled a statue of Margrete I at Roskilde.
The statue was created more than 50 years ago by the sculptor Anne-Marie Carl Nielsen, who was the wife of the Danish composer Carl Nielsen. The original was made of plaster of paris and was hidden for 40 years in the storage area of Roskilde Museum. Businesswoman Elsebeth Stryn donated the 1 million DKk needed to make a bronze version of the statue which is of Queen Margrete I on a horse.

Dagbladet Online




From The Sunday Telegraph in Sydney: "This is not the outfit that royal Danish bridesmaid Amber Petty plans to wear to the christening of her buddy Princess Mary's second bub next year. The controversial blonde is just one of the femmes featured in Women of the World -- a charity coffee table book being put together by kaftan queen Camilla Frank. With each of the women asked to pick their favourite outfit for the book, Petty went positively wild with this red, Spanish-style dress and was snapped against a suitably exotic backdrop. The book, which will benefit female human rights, will be published next year."


Just a clarification of reports at the time of the end of the trip to Australia by Frederik and Mary about an alteration to their marriage settlement. A later report in B.T. provided more information which countered the "miser" accusation of tabloid Ekstra Bladet. The Ekstra Bladet story was widely quoted in almost all Danish and Australian media and claimed the new settlement was negative for Mary and that the new settlement was because the royal family had learned a lesson from Princess Alexandra having 'fleeced' Prince Joachim. The Princess Alexandra situation aside, the earlier aggreement between Frederik and Mary was considered not to be legally binding and apparently was a joke in legal circles because of its inadequacy. That has been remedied by the new agreement and there is also said to be a secret agreement between Frederik and Mary now which in no way disadvantages her. Of course, this is all very hypothetical given Frederik and Mary are certainly no Charles and Diana and appear to be highly unlikely to ever need the agreement.

Mary's sister Patricia Bailey, with daughters Maddison and Mollie, on the Vædderen, the Galathea 3 expeditionary ship in Hobart. They are with captain Carsten Schmidt. The Vædderen was on a stopover in Hobart on the 7th & 8th December. The Crown Prince Couple left Australia on December 4. The Vædderen sailed from Hobart to Sydney where they had an extended stopover and a change of crew. The ship departed Australia for the second half of its voyage on December 14.

Frederik and Mary attended the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on the evening of December 9, after the Holger Reedtz-Thott christening at Gavnø Castle. After the christening lunch at Gavnø, Frederik and Mary later went to the concert with Peter and Caroline Heering and Peter Heering's younger brother Gregers Heering, who works in film in the USA. They arrived at the Forum in Copenhagen at 9pm and stayed for three hours. They had previously been to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert at Den Blå Hal in Christiania a few months ago.

Jyllands-Posten - Red Hot Chili Peppers: Fornemmelse for musikkens sjæl (if you are a fan you can check the program here, left hand side, although the article is in Danish)
Berlingske Tidende's reviewer gave the concert only 2 out of a possible 6 stars
Ekstra Bladet - Chili con ølfest
Ekstra Bladet - Tamme chilier
Se og Hør




Finally, we are approaching not only the royal Christmas and New Year but also our own first anniversary. We will be posting some reviews of the year-that-was during this quiet period, and we look forward to bringing in the Danish royal New Year and a new blog year too!