It is not always easy to find royal magazines. Even in Europe.
Or, more precisely, it is not always easy to find them outside the geographic scope they publish for. Where many newspaper/magazine kiosks will have Cosmopolitan, Elle or Vogue, often in more than one language, they often don’t seem to cater to those of us who’re into royalty.
It is therefore I’m so very happy when I’m in Stavanger. Then I know that I can go to the Narvesen by the cinema (on Arneageren) and find a fairly broad selection of magazines that cover royals from European countries. There’s Billedbladet from Denmark, Royals from Belgium, Hello and Hola!, Svensk Damtidning, and so on. On my last visit, I was most pleased to find the new Swedish magazine dedicated solely to royalty – Queen.
Queen is a magazine I’ve been looking for in shops in Copenhagen, and I had almost decided on heading over the Øresund to Malmö in my quest for a copy. Now, I don’t have to do that.
(Did I enjoy the magazine? Yes, with a few minor exceptions. Was it worth getting? Definitely! It brightened an otherwise dreary plane trip.)
The Norwegian team (Geir Gulliksen, Morten Djupvik, Stein Endresen and Tony André Hansen) took a bronze in equestrian event jumping today.
This is the first time since 1936 that Norway has sent an equestrian team to the Olympics - and the first Norwegian equestrian medal since 1928 in Amsterdam. (At those games, Arthur Qvist, Bjart Ording and Wilhelm Johansen won a silver medal.)
Norway’s, formerly, riding princess Märtha Louise - who was on the national team for a while, and tried to make it to the Olympics herself - watched it on television with her second cousin, Marianne Ulrichsen.
Marianne’s father, Queen Sonja’s cousin, Kjell Ulrichsen, is the owner of one of the horses, Camiro, who competed today. He was present in Hong Kong. Had it not been for a pregnancy, (which earlier today, she revealed was just one baby), Märtha Louise would have been in Hong Kong herself, supporting the Norwegian team.
Märtha Louise commended the riders on an excellent result, on a difficult field.
Dressage is not my thing. Yet, I’ve found myself watching the dressage at the Olympics… to see how Princess Nathalie is doing. Then the royal-watching becomes intended, and catching glimpses of Princess Benedikte, and the Greek royals in the mix is to be expected.
Since I’ve been watching dressage, I think I’ve picked up on a few things, and even with the abysmal Danish commentators, I’ve managed to catch the news that Nathalie is the best Dane in dressage so far. (She’s riding on Tuesday, on DR2 for the ones getting that channel)
However, when I’m watching the Athletics - I’m not really doing it for the royals. It’s not quite so many of them participating in Athletics (none, that I’ve seen.) So, it is for the sports I’m watching, and not for the royals.
And then comes the in-adverted peek of a royal when the award ceremonies comes around. I’m thrilled to see Albert II of Monaco, instead of a non-royal IOC member.
Now, if I could only catch a glimpse of the Swedish king and queen in the audience… 
As the news of the King Penguin Nils Olav who received a Norwegian knighthood in Edinburgh Zoo yesterday, can be a bit outlandish.
But it is not April 1st, and the penguin, who from before has risen relatively rapidly in the ranks of the Norwegian military, is a commander-in-chief of the Royal Guard. He received the knighthood from King Harald V’s substitute, British Major General Euan Loudon. The King commended him as a penguin, in every way qualified to receive the honours of knighthood.
One can say a lot of things about knighting a penguin, but I’ll settle for this: for an army penguin, Nils Olav certainly can’t be worse than a lot of the others big-wigs who’re running the Norwegian army at the moment.
Where the Norwegian sand volleyball players believed that King Harald’s presence at their match may have brought them luck, Danish newspaper Politiken is not quite sure that the same is the case with Crown Prince Frederik and the Danish athletes. In an attempt (not quite serious, I hope) to figure out why the Danish results are lacking in this Olympics - with the exception of yesterday’s bronze in Hong Kong - they’ve deduced that Frederik’s presence may be unlucky.
Personally, I’m not sure about that.
But I do know that Norway collected its second medal in Swimming, ever, in these Olympics, bronze to Sara Nordenstam tonight. With King Harald and Queen Sonja in the audience. The head of Norwegian sport who had been sitting next to them, commented to Dagbladet that: “The King was all fired up, and the Queen was crying.” Nordenstam’s time was also a new European record.
Denmark has its first medal in the Beijing Olympics - the Danish dressage team won a bronze. Princess Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenberg-Berleburg rode excellent, and received the score of 70,417 per cent. She was the best rider on the Danish team today.
Television pictures of Nathalie after her performance showed relief and exhaustion.
Many congratulations both to the riders, the horses and Denmark.
Kvinder BT (the female section of newspaper BT) have asked their readers who the most attractive Danes are. Michael Laudrup came in first on the male side, and the Crown Princess came in first on the female side.
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Nathalie zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg will be the second Danish team member, riding in the dressage competition. She’s riding tomorrow at 19.33, local time.
For Danes who wish to follow the dressage, DR2 is transmitting from 13.10. (Nathalie is riding at 13.33).
Anne van Oelst starts for the Danish team today, and Andreas Helgestrand will finish after Nathalie tomorrow
Information from the official site.
King Harald watched a sand volleyball match today, and the Norwegian team turned towards him and cheered when they nabbed their final point.
Player Nila Tørlen wondered if the king brings them good luck, as they’ve also previously won matches when he’s been in the audience, and hopes he’ll return for their crucial match.
Today was Prince Nikolai of Denmark’s first day of school after the Summer vacation. He was accompanied by his mother, his step-father and his younger brother, Prince Felix.
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August 11th, 2008 Beijing
The Norwegian royal family have divided the Olympics between them – King Harald and Queen Sonja is attending the first part of the games, and the Crown Prince will take over for the last days.
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August 10th, 2008 Cayx
Prince Henrik revealed in an interview with BT, that he and the Queen are thinking of leaving their French wine-château Cayx to Crown Prince Frederik. The reasoning behind this, apparently, is that Joachim already has a castle of his own in Southern Jutland - Schackenborg.
Because a place where you live in Southern Jutland can indeed be compared to a Château in France where you spend holidays. And, quite frankly, … uh… the cavalier attitude Prince Henrik has towards whether or not there will be continued wine production at Cayx, when the offspring takes over, surprises me, given the time and funds he has invested in building it up.
Since she is not strictly a royal and not a brand name, this only sort of ties into the earlier post on Royals as Brand names. However, I found it fairly amusing, as I’ve found a lot of Zara Philips’ ads for Land Rover.
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In 1996, I received my first copy of a book that would prove to give ample fruit to the interest in future investigations on the subject. The city was London, with its many bookshops, and in one of those… I received my first copy of Kings and Queens of England and Great Britain, by Eric R Delderfield.
The edition of the book, which I acquired, may not be quite up to date today - after all, Charles and Diana are no longer married; the Queen has two more grandchildren; Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother have passed away, et cetera. However, it is still an interesting book to rummage through, for the longer historic lines, and details… even if the more current history is not quite up to date.
Today, for basic information, I suspect one would just go to Wikipedia today for the information, instead of to a book.
Well, in July we had BT deducing that Marie must be pregnant…
And now it seems that Billedbladet has jumped on the bandwagon. With an enticing article title - Marie’s bulging stomach - and some interesting accompanying before and after pictures, they’re certainly getting involved in the stomach-gazing. It could just be the top, or the relaxing after the wedding (and Marie did not look like someone who caught the so-called princess-disease before the wedding, anyway), or there could be an addition to the family on the way.
With all these things… we’ll just have to wait and see. And enjoy the speculation from the Danish media.
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