A couple of immediate digs at Mary - oh so subtle! - independently wealthy Baroness Caroline, former model and tv star, is madly in love with her bogan footy player and they're hoping for many more children besides the baby on the way. If that isn't a direct assault on the Taroona Baboona and her lower-middle class, impecunious, immigrant family background, desparation pregnancies and lack of luck with both teenage Sydney Swan Ryan O'Keefe and a D-List celebrity career, honey, I don't know what is!
Introducing one of only two pages where you will see Miss Mary in this issue: with her children who look sufficiently tranquilised in stark contrast to their behaviour inside the palace, as Far is handed the keys to the place. BB has placed its bets, and the roulette wheel says Marie on passion red for the win! It's like a complimentary casino drink for all of us! Note how the magazine doesn't try its luck by publishing the photos of a very badly behaved pair of royal children. Izzy's hair may have been brushed and cleanly pulled back for once, but it only exposed the martian-gosling head shape she inherited from her daddykins. Xian Amin Mugabe Ceausescu Beelzebub was just cruel giving his mother the fish eye when she nearly let down the side and threatened him with "the Professor Donaldson treatment" in front of the cameras. Mary's Scotch hams can do a surprisingly adept pincer hold on a child's cardie's neck, we noted. Mary, for once, was scarlet with embarassment at her inability to discipline those kids. Interestingly, they behave like their cousins around the nannies ...
Marie wins again this week for the sparkly little black dress she debuted in Rio! Daisy's approving photo is placed nearby to communicate subliminals about their good relationship.
"Princess Marie's life has totally changed", "I try to be strong". Marie is not afraid to be vulnerable! Two years after becoming the châtelaine of Schackenborg and princess of Denmark, Marie and her adoring husband have been trusted with business and cultural missions in important emerging markets all across the world! (Meanwhile, Fred gets to go 100 km away to a village of lederhosen-sporting types. Sorry, Mary, they wouldn't know a Doreen brastrap on show from your bespoke one!) BB predicts that the royal couple (that's Prince Joachim and Princess Marie) will return to Brasil in 2014 for the next World Cup. In this past year's Cup, the heirs to the thrones of Spain and the Netherlands were there, so if Denmark plays in the finals, seems it won't be Frederik to cheer on the team - he'll be too busy sneaking in chugs of scotch amidst four screeching children! No doubt he will supplement his broad knowledge of distilled products with the "wee dram of whisky in the baby's bottle" trickery in no time ...
BB proclaims that Marie is 100% engaged and a sensitive person whose heart is in the right place. (We will leave it to the dear reader to figure the blatant and contrasted subtext.) Marie was extremely touched to have visited a children's centre at a favela and promises to return and see their progress.
BB notes in the photo of the couple posing in front of their hotel pool, that like Diana (oh, dear, keep the knives away from Mary!), Marie swam every morning during her visit.
So cute to see Marie's neatly pedicured foot on the football, ready to play with the kids (unlike Mary who just poses with and hogs the basketball in DC). It's a foot-off against Mary's bunion and rubbing defaced feet at Arlington a few months back. Marie is definitely channeling Jackie O here better than Mary was there!
Five million people saw Marie on the Brasilian morning show. That's equivalent to the entire Danish population! And some 1.5 times the entire metro population of Washington DC (where Mary did NOT appear on a tv show). Very nicely played, Schackenborg grey men, aka the anti-Mary strategic team! So, many people will now associate Denmark with a very attractive and modern young woman who loves doggies, kids and their speciality bread, as served to her on set. Denmark's royals have been branded, and it is good! Worth noting that our little bundle of gustatory pleasure Marie continued to scoff her little bun on her way off the set. Now that's PR! (Contrast that with Mary, who won't even provide her unborn with an internal tipple of amniotic fluid.)
Meanwhile, Daisy and Henrik, sick of sitting home listening to the moaning coming through the palace walls from Fred's personal ICU wing, have decided to take to the countryside to meet some peasants. There's the completed tapestry that Daisy helped weave on her 2002 visit which seems to depict the shattered country after an Australian interloper sailed into their harbour and like a cancer cell, started killing their monarchy from the inside. Daisy is nothing if not prescient.
There's also some blind bunny chasing by Henrik. The helmet is well equipped to steer one very clear of bogans and arrivistes. He'll surely ask for one as a gift - will come in handy at the palace where Mary lives and the Donaldsons visit!
In a direct signal to Mary to load up on fat-laden calories during her pregnancy, Daisy swigs buttermilk straight from the carton during a tour of the Arla facility.
And naturally has a sit down at the artist's bench for a little creative fun. Nil Arts, Nil Culture Mary's version of creative fun is presumably devising methods to tuck the jowels up under the mandible for the posing of endless "tableaux vivants seules" by way of reflection within a gilded frame, with much creative soft pink lighting. Or perhaps she lays out shoes by brand, or by color ... that would be about it really!
Charles and Camilla enjoy a serious laugh at a fair; Carl Philip is at farm school in the south of Sweden; Harry's spurs prick his horse; young Alexandra Hannover dives into the pool.
Marie: "Don't you think this new smartphone is rather clunky"?
Daisy: "Incredibly, one has to vaccuum the car oneself"!
Felix: "I'm the royal purveyor of Bubbles!"
BB is stretching this one! Mary's pastel plaid silk blouse by Rützou and cost the Danish taxpayer 1,049 kroner. Look for it for sale online at Haberdash.dk in a few months!
Oh! Here's the best bit! BB does make it worthwhile for us by slipping in a photo of the charming "Crown Princess Katja" - the love of Frederik's life, and available as soon as Mary's fossilised claws can be surgically removed - rocking a LBD while out on the town and wearing a cross necklace that was a recent birthday pressie from friends. Commitment to the Lutheran Church is mandatory in a future queen - good signalling, Katja! Looks like your inner circle has high hopes! Katja looks more radiant by the month, while the Patty genes are escaping past the polyester tarpaulin stretched across Mary's mien. (Anyone aware of the artist Christo's Sydney cliff wrap in 1969 might well think Mary is old enough to have been a volunteer ... )
Lille prins Henrik is so adorable and really getting around now on his own! He took his first unaided steps while Maman and Papa were in Brasil, and he's beginning to talk, too. He calls Marie "Mamma" which isn't yet either French or Danish, but they're sure he understands both languages and will be able to read French easily in a few years. Good! Too late for the Kancellihuset half-gargoyle boy, but probably not for cousin Izzy who will benefit from frequent visits to her country cousins. It is pretty much certain that once away from the appalling bad manners exhibited by her mother, father and brother, Our Izzie is perfectly princess-like and fun to have around to tea with her cousins.
A charming distant cousin of Fred got married recently to his equally smart and beautiful bride. Carl Johan and Sidsel recently ended a joint humanitarian mission in Africa with Doctors Without Borders. Sidsel is also descended from Danish kings. Fred should take note of the strong social justice commitment from these two equally privileged people, but he's too busy keeping the whisky industry afloat during these difficult economic times globally. Watch out, Mary! Your "Scotch Nanny" sex role is in danger of being utterly superseded. Remember Ogden Nash: "Candy is Dandy, but Liquor is Quicker"!
Congratulations to Maria Montell who gave birth to a daughter! This is her third child. She's actually looking less and less like Amber Petty the further into a loving marriage and motherhood she gets. Fred sure used to go for pretty blondes!
Caroline Fleming and Arsenal footballer Nicklas Bendtner give a photo shoot for Danish Elle magazine and tell everyone about their love and life in London and plans for more babies. Try to rub that smooth, Danish chest Mary!