Saturday, May 28, 2011

Billed Bladet #21: Marie, the Sacrificial Lamb

"Marie Must Stay Home!" scream the headlines! The reference is to the fact that Joachim will be skipping his cousin Nathalie's wedding in Berleburg, Germany in a couple of weeks because he must remain in Denmark as regent. You already know the facts and consequences of the regency law; it's the one that keeps a born member of the royal family in Denmark at all times. The real story is the two-fold attack - in BB's special, subtle way - on Crown Princess Mary of Donaldson.



For one thing, there is nothing keeping Marie away from the wedding, but she is being a very supportive wife and mother to a young child by staying with her family. Subtext: remember Mary traipsing to Australia in her second trimester with underweight babies and no wedding rings to air guitar with her washed up bestie in a strapless, shit-brown harem jumpsuit avec pantylines? Sticking it to your husband from a lame party halfway across the world is NOT royal.



Additionally, by remaining home, Marie shows us that she understands that duty and supporting her husband are more important than chatting with people you just saw a month ago anyway just to wear a diademe and leave with a party bag of Jordan almonds. Subtext: Mary will do anything to play dress up in front of the cameras, in a dime store tiara and German-designed dress, to have her photo taken. She wants us to know that she deserved Wills & Kate's wedding, but minor German nobility is the only invite she can snag.



Maxima gets big Danish style points for wearing red and white, the national colours.





Everything is wrong with this. Crown Princess Mary makes her annual pilgrimage to this equestrian event with riding "friend" Charlotte Velin, an attorney and friend of the royal family. Charlotte has been sucked into this PR event nearly every year - even down to having to personally escort the children when they were (too) young - and that can't change even though Fred has to also be there for damage control this year. Poor Izzy. Even though the nannies have managed to braid the hair out of her face, she still looks so tense around her More. Her expression seems to say, "Joizuz, More, would you just.stop.prancing? This Tourette's of yours is killing me. You are not actually a horse. I am not a horse. Stop making me play on the course as if I were an animal, ruining it for the riders."



Izzy's thought bubble: "I know. Can you believe it? Only when you camera people are around does she pretend to take an interest in my well-being. I have a frickin' club foot and this is all the attention it will ever get. Don't worry, I'm on to it."



With all of the financial resources and style mavens surrounding her that Crown Princess Mary could stop looking like Bogan Mary Donaldson and her Ugly Sisters. Really, Mary? Gray clothing, dirty hair pulled back in a bathroom clip, jeans too tight to show the world you still got it (although "it" isn't what you think it is). It looks like you rolled out of bed twenty minutes ago. Even Fred is dressed in the manner of the chic upper classes out for a day at a horsing event.



Note to Mary: it is not ok to let your spastic children "let off some steam" by ruining the course, nor is it ok to bring the damn dog. You couldn't possibly really love horses, Mary Donaldson!



Oh, dear. That Christian! Doing the Boganson Family Victory Dance that granpappy Professor Jock 'Half-Mast' Donaldson taught him. A little premature, but very promising if the Bogansons actually manage to wrest the throne from a clearly sedated Frederik.





Fred was sent to Africa to meet poor and sick people for sympathy points, but all BB can reward him with is a tiny little mention on the page break. Royal Joachim got a 4 page spread when he brought joy and meaning to Africa's lives! Hm, there are also no Katja out-on-the-town shots this week. BB is definitely leaning Team Schackenborg for the time being. C'mon, Fred, rally!



Joachim was definitely pressed into action handing out prizes to winning Danes. He's always reliable for a princely showing!



And to increase his "regular Joe" street cred, Joachim was sent to a typically Danish sausage cart to buy a hot dog. This is what Mary's PR team should be doing! Playing to sister's strengths: shoving weinies into her mouth. Danes would eat it up like Taswegian, ute-shagging, used-car salesmen used to.



So, Princess Josephine's baptismal gown looks like the one that came from the Swedish side of the family via Ingrid. Noice coincidence. Princent wore the historic Danish gown. Was Mary Donaldson baptised? Funny how we've never seen photies of Mary doing anything religious from her Hobart days. Does she just not show up on film anywhere within steps of a church?





The Australian Ambassador, James Choi, has invited Freckles and Morey to the embassy to meet and greet Aussies on the occasion of the twins' birth. All this is, however, is a freebie pickup and photo opportunity. If this party is fun, the guest list good and the presents acceptable, look for James Choi later on as having received particular graces and favours from the Countess of Monpezat.



Bubbles! From the top left corner, clockwise. Danes aren't actually racist, just a tad xenophobic.
Marie: "Keep it together until the speakers are through."
Joachim: "Frederik has clearly been speaking Korean all day."
Marie: "Did you remember to set the video to record Landskampen?"
South Korean President: "Let's open with a karoake duet!"
Marie: "Oh, this'll be a fun evening."



Michelle Obama has invited Daisy and Henri to the White House for tea. How lovely! A courtesy not extended to Derf and Yrma on their tour to introduce Americans to the New Jackie Kennedy. #DanishdiplomacyFAIL.



Hedging their bets, Royal Mailbag this week concentrates on the British queen, keeping the flame alive for more Kate Middleton articles to push Mary off the page.


Thursday, May 26, 2011

Happy 40th Birthday, Maxima!



The glamourous, fabulous Princess Maxima of The Netherlands celebrated her 40th birthday with a musical concert at Amsterdam's Concertgebouw in the company of many of her family, friends, royal colleagues and co-workers from her many professional affiliations and with the full support of her loving husband and proud mother-in-law, the queen. Such a dignified, inclusive and elegant way to celebrate a major life milestone! What a contrast to Freddles' 40th with nobody but friends and a few fellow royals, most of whom were close cousins and whose entertainment came from his guy friends forming a drunken boy band, Amber Petty sneaking ciggies with Daisy then blabbing about it on live national radio, and Amber and Mary air guitaring for five hours straight, all while angering the neighbours at Fredensborg who were kept awake all night by the music.

In true fashion - and perhaps with new orders from Mary's new PR firm McCann-Copenhagen - the Danish media is rising to the daunting challenge of trying to convince you that Mary outshined Maxima (photographic proof of the opposite be damned). Because, of course, it must be a contest, and Our Mary must win. BT tries this act with a gallery of photos from Friday night in Amsterdam that ironically have Mary in very grainy shots combined with beautiful clear ones of Maxima and others. Check out beautiful Mama Zorreguieta - the apple doesn't fall far from the tree! Mary is wearing the weird, too-short yarn dress by Lithuanian designer Juozas Statkevicius that she wore to Freddie's 40th birthday boat tour.

Mary naturally retreats into standard royal gathering territory: she disappears in an unflattering dress, pasty skin, no sex appeal and a frozen face and self-conscious appearance, alienating everyone around her. The only time she comes alive is when it's time to make fun of another girl who has a minor, inconsequential adjustment to her clothing. Poor Mathilde, the best dressed of the night, seems to be wrapping her train behind her for the group shot and Mary has completely ignored the formal pose to look down the way and laugh at her over poor Guillaume who is not taking the bait! The poor Aga Khan, distinguished and erudite leader of the world's Ismaili muslims, patron of architecture, Paris-based leader in international horse racing - could he be more bored and slightly scared by his neighbour in the theatre, Mary, who in true beta fashion has to look across him at how Maxima is taking in the attention given to her? Take a look at this video from the theatre. You can see Mary making mental notes about her own Evita-like 40th birthday party next year - if she's dumb enough to make the Danes spot her one!

How can you not love Maxima? She is loved, loving, fun, vibrant, unselfconscious, unafraid, caring toward people close to her, aware that she owes her fabulous life to her husband and most of all - she OWNS it. Happy Birthday!

Tillykke med fødselsdagen, Frederik!



Happy 43rd Birthday, Freddles! Hopefully your visit to Mozambique these last three days have been fulfilling and restful being away from home and the trouble it causes you. Hopefully the recent "Greenland Accord" with Mor Daisy has helped given you a reason to continue living and to see a brighter future for yourself!

Both BT and Berlingske have the same gallery of 43 photos to celebrate. A special highlight is that so many of the photos feature a good number of his ex-girlfriends, so even BT is riding the Anybody But Mary bandwagon! There are even a few choice early Mary shots, just for effect. But the two photos of Fred and Crown Princess Katja are very telling: they are clearly in love, tuned into each other physically, and Katja is displaying the very telling flush of true, deep, romantic and sexually satisfying love.

Another BT gallery shows us Fred's more, er, "professional" life and work. It's not too impressive.

Berlingske has this gallery of the "throne followers", as everyone in line for the Danish throne is called. Publishing such a photo display reminds us of the attractiveness of the Schackenborg branch, with the subtle reminder that they are just as capable of inheriting the Danish crown in case the Boganborg line isn't up to snuff. Of course, Our Izzy puts up a formidable challenge to her constipated brother and gorgeous cousins, but one might anticipate that our girl would rather a happy life of anonymity away from the very environment that suppresses her lively nature.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Billed Bladet #20: Cue the "Happy Family" Outing!

What a funny issue. It's like the editors of BB are too afraid to admit that Crown Princess Mary of Denmark is a drag and that other people in her sphere are so much more interesting and worthy of their positions - and they are telling the truth through photos instead of words. Because the words would kill all the blue-haired ladies of Denmark, and get picked up by Aussie media types, then it would be ON, with Madam hiring international PR firms for damage control, and... oh, wait. Read on, dear ones, this is exactly what happens. Mwoah. Good luck, Lene Balleby!



So, Daisy, via Lene, ordered some "happy family for make Danes forget problems" photos for her wayward daughter-in-law and son. Fred's tan from Greenland underscores the freedom he is now tasting with a court-ordered vastectomy. No more bogan babies! Daisy's carefully crafted, 1000 year old gene pool has been plenty poisoned in a 6 year span with undignified, sociopathic, Pictish contributions. No more!



The children aren't actually retarded, they're just acting out in a strange environment: a normal family outing with both parents who aren't yelling at each other. These kids are so used to fighting, passive-agression, real agression and emotional terrorism that they overcompensate by upping the ante and behaving badly for the negative attention they crave. It at least gets More and Far to ignore each other for a moment to tend to the children's increasingly twisted needs. Very sad situation. More outings with Auntie Marie are what Dr. Geldstein prescribes, but Mary's not talking to him anymore since he obeyed Daisy and tossed out all the little frozen Freddles embryos.



Izzy is supposedly in ballet classes, or at least this is what others assume seeing the young child photographed for German Vogue in a tutu, and walking down the street in a tutu here and discussion of "dance" class. But there is no way she is actually enrolled in classical ballet classes. She wouldn't be wearing a tutu, for one, and for another, a dead-giveaway, her hair would be scraped back into a little bun. She must be enrolled in a creative dance class where little girls are allowed to indulge themselves in fantasy costumes and learn to get comfortable with movement, physical expression and group instruction. Ballet goes a long way toward teaching discipline and grace, two elements missing from Izzy's home education, so let's hope Daisy enrolls her one of these days! Can't have More's stooped shoulders!



One of the daughters of Fred's friends Jeppe and Birgitte Handwerk is also in Izzy's dance class. Palma arrived with her dad, who has the same Frogman tattoo as Fred, and older sister India arrived later with their mother.



So, now that all of the Yay Mary part of the issue is over and done with (except for her brief Morticia Adamms-style appearance at the Korean State Dinner), lets get going with the Mary's Nightmare portion of this issue: the beautiful women who surround Fred, and those who would have made him a much happier man. Why, look! Here's Katja! Looking stunning, too, in a gold-print silk dress at a cocktail party for designer Dea Kudibal that was also attended by Rose Gad, wife of Fred's friend Holger Foss. Team Derf sending out acolytes to plant seeds and send messages back and forth between former lovers?



Marie and her cute bootie won Royal Dress of the Week and she also got called out for the pretty hairstyle at the airport to greet the Korean diplomats. Twice as old as Mary, but also twice as hot is the wife of Ove Ullerup, the Queen's Court Marshall, in a Letizia-inspired red, knock-out dress.



Nice choice of photo of Derf and Marie looking like a very attractive Crown Princely Couple. It really is about Fred and Anyone Else, isn't it?





Some of the guests, including Marie's attractive current and former ladies-in-waiting and their husbands.





More guests, including Mary's LIW Tanja, Fred's babysitter Christian Schønau and Court PR manager Lene Balleby who looks much better with her hair down.





Interesting photos of Mary in her horribly re-designed wedding tiara. Neither royal brother is able to make eye contact with her. Who could blame them! "Medusa" has become the family nickname for her from the Greek story of the woman who turns people to stone and has hair of snakes - an honest mistake based on badly inserted Romanian wiglets. But it's mostly very funny how Mary is clearly upset with the size and impact of her wedding tiara. She sees Maxima in several gorgeous, historic pieces, even Letizia and Mette-Marit have 2 or 3 they can switch between, and then there's Marie in a larger, family piece especially chosen by Daisy. Mary knows her chain was bought at auction since the rubies technically belong to Fred. But the hot-glued seed pearls are not substantial enough, nor well-positioned enough, to give this tiara any beauty or gravitas. Eat your heart out, Mary Donaldson. That general store piece of tin still ain't this one!





What nice, easy rapport between Derf and the Schackenborgs! Marie is friendly with Fred, loving toward her husband and present, enthusiastic and respectful at the closing event for the South Korean presidential entourage at the Glyptotek museum. This threesome has such an easy time around each other, and the brothers' Marie sandwich is just the ticket for a long-starved and undernourished Freddles.







Even Daisy gets in on the anti-Mary fun by showing off the wonderful relationship she has with her bestie Susanne Heering. It was the 30th Jubilee of Susanne's Danse Institut and all the kids Mrs. H teaches were there with her sometimes collaborator, the queen. Crown Princess Mary's bestie is Amber Petty, a washed up, bikie buddy, failed student who gets bitch slapped in pubs, steals husbands from their families, and can't keep a job at a provicial radio station and looks ridden hard and hung up wet. Daisy's bestie is an accomplished dancer and business owner, sharing her talents with the next generation, the proud mother of one of Fred's best friends and happy grandmother who just celebrated her 70th birthday and yet looks so much more vital and happy than Mary's bestie.



How can you not love this photo at the bottom of the page of Daisy drinking via straw from a kid's apple juice container, holding both her ciggie and a sausage roll from one of Copenhagen's ubiquitous sausage carts, the pølsevogn. If Mary had any savvy whatsoever, she would be seen buying a sausage from one of those carts and eating it as she walked through town. I swear, that would guarantee her being named Dane of the Year for 10 years running. Let's see if her PR team can figure out something so simple!



One more blow, this one's an upper cut! Princess Maxima turns 40 and is as radiant as ever! This well-loved princess of the Netherlands has skin just as irradiated as Mary's used to be, but all you see is health, happiness and a real zest for life and living. What a gorgeous woman and asset to her new country!





Nice photos of a beautiful young family, and some photos of Maxima on duty - in Mary's company, too. Where, you ask? Note the pale, febrile shadow next to Willem-Alexander as he escorts his vibrantly dressed wife in rubies and Letizia-red. Also note the back of the woman in a toxic-green dress (this originally off-white dress - Mary loves dressing as a bride at weddings - oxidised to green once it touched Mary Donaldson's unwashed skin) posing for photies at the Swedish royal wedding. Maxima's hand is firmly on Mary's back - she's game and friendly, that Dutch girl! Mary's hand seems to fall straight down and grasp the railing behind Maxima. Mary's demonstrated several times her reluctance to human touch, much in the way her clothing here has reacted to her body, much in the way her husband has done the same!





Oh, God, you ask, what's next to highlight Mary's deficiencies? Alex comforting Bulgarian orphans? Why, yes!







And not to be missed, the loving Schackenborg couple whose respectful public displays of affection three years after their marriage contrast glaringly against the awkward public appearances of Fred and Mary who mostly ressemble two eight year olds forced to walk together at a cousin's wedding.





Such a tiny little mention in BB, but such big news! Still reeling from all of these comparisons with women she thinks are just bitches, idiots and whores, Crown Princess Mary has contracted with The McCann Group's Copenhagen office to be her marketing and branding guru for The Mary Fund. Mary Fund my arse! This is for Mary and only Mary. Greenland was a turning point for the DRF and Mary knows she has to engage with professionals for her own version of Diana's Panorama interview. This is no doubt something set up by Princess Josie godmother Josephine Rechner, a marketing communications executive with Q Strategies, Melbourne and someone Mary pegged to be a sympathetic "mentor", manipulating Josephine with plenty of opportunities for nurturing and maternal comforting. A true sociopath always keeps a kinder victim on the side for the times when she manages to finally alienate everyone else.



Koo-koo! Surprise! Darling Mor is sending our two lovebirds to South Korea as a special treat for badly behaving children. Try to PR-firm your way out of thissie, Mares! The news shouldn't come as too big a shock to Derf, however, since this little visit is based on the joke Dais and Derf shared on their bonding/re-organisation tour in Greenland recently about dropping off the Countess af Monpezat at the DMZ where special CIA agents and Fred's old Navy SEALs buddies could help create a "horrible accident" disguising Madam's extradition across the border to become one of Kim Jong-Un's odalisques. The nice thing about North Korea's blackout of Western images and broadcasts is that Mary's looks and build would be considered "most delightful and make for happy man's fat to jiggle". Especially if he needs a field to plow.



A letter asking which national song is older, the British or Norwegian (the British "God Save the Queen"'s melody is used for the 1905 new Norwegian national song "Kongesangen"). Another asking why the former Greek king Paul I's grandson is named Pavlos and what his name would be if he were king (Paul/Pavlos are a name with the same root and if Pavlos were king, the Greeks would call him Pavlos II, and the Danes would refer to him as Paul II). Only one letter on the twins christening, and it's only about who the uniformed gentleman was walking behind the couple on their exit from church (the Queen's adjunct Major Gorm Martin Larsen). Interesting photo addition and question since it keeps the eyes off of the clown princely couple and onto a more distinguished member of the royal staff.



Among the freebies, er, gifts, the new turkey baster babies have received were some from Tasmania. They received two small, decorated wooden boxes filled with children's books from their mother's birthplace, made by a craftsman from Launceton, commissioned by Tassie Premier Lara Giddings.



Ulf Pilgaard is a Danish actor who has had a wonderful career playing Daisy for television and stage revues. Here, he takes on Daisy as grandmother to twins, cigarette dangling out of the side of her mouth and all! A similar scene after Christian was born is in this video clip.





A noble wedding took place at Broholm Gods on the island of Fyn (see top photo, second page). This is the castle the groom will inherit one day. But the couple will live at the bride's home of Egeløkke Gods in the northern part of Langeland, an island south of Fyn. The bride, Regitze Kaas Knuth, will be in charge of the restoration of her family seat. The groom is Anders Sehested Hjerl-Hansen and is 10 years younger than his 34-year old wife. Regitze is wearing the same order of Vallø Skifts for unmarried noble women that Caroline Fleming's younger sister Duddi wore on her wedding day, and that Frex-cousin Countess Marina af Rosenborg wears to gala-dress occasions, for example, the 2004 wedding. The bride's lace came from the same French firm that created the lace for Kate Middleton's wedding dress, Sophie Hallette. As a reminder: this is the life that Mary actually pretended through a series of interviews to have actually come from. She wanted us to believe that she's actually landed gentry, from a world of inherited wealth and ponies. Mary must be livid every time BB publishes photos from the lives of actual noble women, since it puts the spotlight on her lies. McCann Group to the rescue?