Without further ado, here is the latest Billed Bladet. This issue features loads of Schackenborg à Cayx photos, announcement of Caroline Fleming's pregnancy with an uber-bogan footie player, and gorgeous close-ups of the Dutch royal girls in pink. Contrast Mary recently in black with screaming children at the circus and you can clearly see the picture BB editors are choosing to portray: without saying it out loud, they are acknowledging the superiority of all other royals to their "saviour" Mary. This is just a way of saving face.
(Click on all photos for the larger version.)
BB opens by proclaiming the Graasten season almost open so that lucky little Mary can be ordered out for a bike ride with her husband with perhaps a chance encounter that they'll meet paps. You know, maybe. Strange photo of Mary's children in a strange autistic dance and their mother seemingly in a Botox and valium induced dull trance in an attempt to have her look sweetly at the children as if she were full of pride and love. Then the cameras left and so did she. Remember, Izzy and Xian Beelzebub were left to play with a red ballon and a guardsman. Take note that the Serene Highness Princess Alexandra is not hovering over her adorable children, giving them room to breathe, and instead is turning her attentions to the forlorn Frederik who cannot bring himself to watch the PR-only spectacle happening below his gaze.
Interesting note under the photo of a badly communicating Fred and Mary that Joachim and Marie will be a part of the delegation that receives Daisy and Henrik on an official visit to their little hometown of Tønder. Another excuse for some really lovely parents-and-preferred-son photos right before the family gathers again on the Graasten steps for pretend unity hour!
The Week in Fashion doesn't feature Mary who remains conspicuously absent from this week's issue. So much for the woman the magazine has held seminars on to sell to a reluctant public that Mary shits rainbows. Daisy does look awfully bright in her Danish red and white. Reasserting herself as Denmark's first lady of the land! Take that, Defender of the Danish (and German and Italian) Fashion Industry!
Yay! It's Marie's turn to go to a family wedding! Looks like some strategic thinking on the part of Joachim and Benedikte who know that if Mary is to be diminished further, she will need to be surrounded by gorgeous, happy people. Since there were so many of that type in Stockholm, Benedikte went, too. Now it is Marie's turn to look happy and relaxed in sunny Greece giggling in French with all of the bride and groom's international friends while pale, diminished Mary is lost and even smaller without her tiny husband. She will interject here and there how lovely East Hampton is this year only to run into genuine inquiries into who she knows and where her house is. Whoops! She probably rented a bungalow with Amber Petty and couldn't even crash Billy Joel's clambake on the beach. Careful, Mary, you won't want to bring up that you lied about being a sailor in a yacht-conscious country like Greece!
Caroline Fleming meets the built up image of "Royal Mary" at the opposite end of the spectrum this week by getting knocked up by her much younger bogan footie player, in a funny real life vignette of Mary and her under age footie player from the days before the Black Amex. Except Caro is titled, rich and feminine. Oh, and she and her boyfriend actually dig each other. Caroline is the actual owner of Valdemars Slot, the family homestead. How nice that Caro and her younger sister Duddi are pregnant at the same time! The couple will continue to live in London, but will spend the summer together with the kids in the US. East Hampton, perhaps? Would make more sense that Mary would sponge off of a rich friend instead of renting a place.
Royal Mailbag. A letter about how Carl Gustaf and Silvia met at the Munich Games in 1972 and if his grandfather the king had not died before their engagement in 1976. Queen Ingrid's father believed that royals married royals. A note also on Princess Elisabeth who worked for 45 years at the Foreign Ministry until 2001 and was stationed in Geneva and Washington at the Danish Embassies for a while. Nice! Lastly, the gorgeous family photo from Marie and Joachim's wedding in which your eye is immediately drawn to the handsome Cavallier-Grassiot clan.
Royal Roundup! Harry and Chelsy hit a beachside bar in South Africa; the Countess of Wessex visits the Hampton Court Flower Show; the wife of the Prince of Venice will be starring in the Crazy Horse caberet in Paris soon; the adorable Asturias family will soon enjoy summer holidays in Palma de Mallorca; and the Swedish parents of the bride enjoy some R&R on their boat near St. Tropez.
Bubbles! Daisy upper left: "Any questions that DON'T revolve around "Eating with Price"?
Charles: "Did I leave Camilla's lambskin fur here?"
Daisy below: "Yeah, yeah, Xian is so difficult you don't want to catch him" (Ouch! Go BB!)
Style Finder. Interesting. In an issue so dedicated to Mary's polar opposite royals, BB features a full frontal of Mary in an unflattering dress that is the bastard child of a dirty dishrag and granny's old smoky curtains. The colour signals that it is best as formal wear for the OR. That is a majorly ugly dress, and yet by the super wonderful designer Jesper Høvring. Goes to show that even Mary can go to a good designer and get it completely screwed up. This photo also brings attention to the fact that Mary is wearing her family order on the wrong side. It goes over the left breast. Always. Mary has incorrectly linked it to the placement of the sash since she wears the opposite hanging Elephant Order most of the time. Sloppy thinking, Miss Strategic Planner!
Caroline Herring is among the birthday babies this week. She turns 38, so she's only a few months younger than Mary. And been hanging around her for so long that she's picked up sister's overzealous smile and strained neck muscles. Easy, girl!
Madeleine was present and accounted for at this year's Victoria Day while her sister is away on her honeymoon. Nice to see Madde looking happy and relaxed at the wedding. Poor Jonas may have gotten a co-worker pregnant. You dodged a big bullet, Mads! She will work again for the World Childhood Foundation in NY soon.
Congratties to Spain on winning the World Cup! Nice opportunity to give some space in the magazine to the happy Spanish royals, the genetically perfect Infantas and the happy if disappointed Dutch royals. Mary's worst nightmare to see more space in BB for her rivals!
Lovely four page spread with large photos of the adorable Dutch princesses and their engaged and lively parents in an uncontrived show of family unity. Take note Frex and MoreMore - your colleagues are showing you up in the family photo department!
The gorgeous Schackenborg family visits Cayx. They get the chateau in the first part of July, Frex and More-y Antoinette get it the last two weeks of July. No much for brotherhood! But never mind when we have this glorious bunch to follow around in the marketplace in Cahors. Keep an eagle eye out for Sluuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrppppppsons and Freckled Gargoyles in the background, aye, mate! Eight pages of visual proof that the younger of Daisy's sons has his personal life figured out. Young master Henrik has his grandpère Alain's gaze, Felix is looking more and more like Joachim and there is plentiful time for Nikolai to practice his French and for the family to sample the offerings at the fois gras stand. Can you imagine Mary eating an animal-fat spread on a carbohydrate? Me neither! Lille Prins Henrik has taken his first steps, but still can't go without holding on to Maman. 
So important to scrutinise the workings of the DRF, in the absence of critical comment from the press.
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