FAIL: The Obvious Oz PR Continues: Maz Boganson Will Be a Star in Australia No Matter What: Post Divorce Roll Out Continues With Uncooperative, Republican Journalist

Fred's face is the same as every woman who has ever had a mammogram: deeply pained and hoping it's soon over!

Oh, Mary (sorry, "Maz"). What happened to your much vaunted expertise in public relations? The first rule in paying people for positive publicity to to give them something to work with, or up the payments. Jane Wheatley didn't get quite enough financial compensation for the BS the court apparently put her through to speak dishonestly and say things about how absolutely charming and wonderful and down to earth "Our Princess Mary" is. Nope, Janie does her very best to speak in generally gushing, over the top tones about "the princess", but lets the cat out of the bag very clearly: Fred is impossible not to like, and Mary is an uptight, insecure, heartless person. Clever of Jane in the video (link below) to contrast Mary's "humanitarian" missions with her poor treatment of her sluurrrrrping father when he was in Denmark. Stupid of Mary to futz that up without being able to counter Jane's question of Papa 'Half-Mast' Boganson's neighbourly-ness by saying simply, "we were so lucky to have him nearby!" Some PR strategery!

One thing is clear: while Fred is hard to dislike, he is very hard to pose now for more fakey-fakey lovey-dovey photo shoots. Fred's passive-agression is in full force in both the interview and the photos. Wha hae! This is just both painful and hilarious. Fred's in on the joke, but won't play along much anymore. Careful, Mares, you're attention to Australian publicity as a fairy tale princess is not just lame, it hinges on the cooperation of your husband.

Pop some popcorn and enjoy the next couple of weeks as we build up to The Bust In Australia: Looker Me! Tour #7! Thanks, Maz!

Autoplay Video: Sydney Morning Herald

Article: The Age.com

Nine years after their wedding and on the eve of a trip to Australia, Jane Wheatley catches up with Copenhagen's royals and finds the fairy tale endures.

It is a golden September afternoon in Copenhagen,and high up on the rooftop of Frederik VIII's palace Crown Princess Mary of Denmark is lying in her husband's arms (as she instructs him through clenched teeth to hold her closer). He is wearing a dress shirt, bow tie loosely undone; she is in a white evening frock and they are snuggled under the parapet, giggling, for all the world like a couple who have had several glasses of champagne at a party and slipped away for a breath of air and a kiss. (Janie is still quite jet-lagged!)

They are, of course, merely indulging the fantasy of the Good Weekend photographer (in other words, everyone knows it's not true!), perched precariously with his camera on a wooden stepladder. But, though it is 13 years since Mary Donaldson from Tasmania met Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark in the bar of Sydney's Slip Inn ("she was one of those girls"), and nine years since she walked up the aisle of Copenhagen Cathedral to become a member of Europe's oldest monarchy, it is evident that the royal couple - now parents of four small children - are still very much in love (whatever love is - thanks, Charles!). There is nothing staged about the intimacy of their exchanges or the way the prince wraps his arms around his wife's slender waist (thanks to steel strengthened corsetry).

Since her early (and continued) struggles with the Danish language and anxieties about navigating a public role for which nothing in her previous life had prepared her, Mary (paid me to tell you that she) has evolved into a poised 41-year-old future queen, an earnest promoter of her chosen causes and a popular ambassador for her adopted country. Denmark, it seems, has taken her to its heart: the monarchy is enjoying its highest approval rating for years - something observers put down to the Mary and Frederik effect (because watching a train wreck is IRRESISTIBLE).

We first meet earlier that day, the couple standing together at the top of a curving stone staircase, the family dog Ziggy beside them. Mary is metro chic in narrow, cropped black pants, high heels and a silk print blouse; Prince Frederik is dapper in an open neck shirt and tweed jacket. We are to start with a tour of the palace, resplendent after a six-year renovation project. "We wanted to restore it to its original late Empire style (because mama is an empress deserving of the Empire of Australia)," explains the princess. "It was truly like waking a sleeping beauty." ("Fred's grandparents took rotten care of it.")

We move through gilded double doors and the prince tells me, "You have to look up here, all the way up." The whole ceiling is painted in a swirl of colours - a splash of scarlet echoing the saddlecloth in a portrait of one of the prince's ancestors on horseback, hanging on the wall. More bold modernist artworks now hang, or are painted on walls, throughout the principle rooms. "Frederik knew about contemporary art, and taught me about it," says Mary, glancing at her husband. (She's an uncultured buffoon who never bothered with museum thinggies until she had to in Denmark.)

He nods. "The experts recommended the artists, and I found I already had some of their work, so that was pleasing." ("Unlike my wife, I know what I'm talking about and I care about art".)

As we stroll from room to room, our heels clicking on the newly scrubbed pine boards, they are much like any married couple who have done up a house and are eager to show it off. In a lovely long reception room, sunlight falls through tall windows onto low tables and inviting sofas in dark-grape velvet. "Everything chosen by the princess," says her husband. ("So blame her if you don't like it.")

"It's not quite finished yet," she demurs, frowning at a collection of gilt chairs marooned on the parquet floor. "They shouldn't be here." ("I'm a control freak who is ready to lash out at the staff.")

There are private apartments within the palace where the couple live "a normal family life" with their children - Christian, 7, Isabella, 6, and two-year-old twins Vincent and Josephine. The princess points through a window down to the back garden, a large green space screened by lime trees and furnished with a sandpit, trampoline and football goalposts. (Yes, Mary, that's a back garden. Good!)

Another room and the prince takes my arm (easy, Janie, you're about to faint, aren't you?). "Come, you need to stand back. Now look." The whole of one wall is taken up with a mural depicting desert, a camel, a palm tree and a helmeted soldier flying through the air - apparently as the result of an explosion kicking up the sand. Goodness, I exclaim, what on earth is this all about? They both laugh. "I like your honesty," says Mary, amused (hideously insulted). "This is one of the more provocative pieces." ("That's what I've learn to say to philistines like you, Jane")

Her husband explains. "We asked the artist to keep in mind the idea of two worlds meeting: Denmark a seafaring nation, and Australia, the great southern land." He smiles, "That didn't quite work out (OH?! Ready to really reveal something to us?), but he had just done a series of paintings under the title Afghanistan, and while the palace was being renovated Denmark was involved in that war as part of an international coalition." ("Unlike my wife who asked one of the artists to use different colours, I know when to allow artists creative freedom.")

We finish our tour in the prince's meeting room, three of its walls painted in the style of an architectural drawing depicting the world atlas, upside down. "Here is Australia," he says, "and Tasmania, of course. Here is Denmark and this is where your plane came in (since the hurricane I prayed for never materialised)." He traces a finger of land. "Now you are here. (Goddammit)" The artist has included personal talismans from the couple's life: children's walking trolleys, a swatch of material from a favourite dress of the princess (pretty poor representation of a person, Mary), a harmonica that the prince plays and a fragment from a Led Zeppelin poster. "We both like Led Zeppelin," says the prince. "You can never get tired of them." (OH GOD YES YOU CAN, all hail and praise to the group's musicality and the hilarious use of Led Zeppelin IV in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, but oh hell yes you can get tired of them, it's corporate radio/arena rock, Mary, and just exposes your tastes as lame and ordinary.)

He ushers me to a polished conference table in the centre of the room. "You should take this chair so you can admire the artwork." He looks at his wife. "Where do you want to sit, Maz?" Evidently the prince has adopted the Australian habit of shortening names. (Maz is a pretty ugly word in German. No doubt Mary doesn't understand that her husband calls her a bitch every time he uses a "love name". Good one, Fred.)

We are joined by his private secretary and Lene Balleby, the very elegant press secretary for the Royal Court. On the table is a tray of coffee, the glass cafetières dressed in little quilted jackets, and a bowl of perfectly arranged fruit worthy of a Dutch still-life. The napkins are monogrammed, the letter M embraced by an italic F on either side (otherwise known as the double vomiting F).

"So," smiles the prince, "We have read an interview of yours with David Attenborough." I am about to respond when Lene Balleby (rudely) interrupts to ask if I could leave the room with her for a moment to discuss something (nervous little twit, isn't she? Don't tell us the Danish royals don't have to be micromanaged). Goodness, I think, we haven't even started yet. Closing the heavy doors behind us she explains that there is one topic I should not raise with the Crown Prince. (Lene, you are off your game and playing into the story of the emporer not having any clothes. Next time lay out the rules before journalists leave Australia, then trust your charges to be able to deftly fend off insensitive questions or topics. Mary and Fred are grown ups, or are at least supposed to act like it.)

In July, Russia passed a law banning "gay propaganda" and the adoption of children by same-sex couples. Russia is to host the Winter Olympic Games next year and, as a member of the International Olympic Committee, the Crown Prince had issued a thinly veiled warning in an email to a Danish newspaper: "Discrimination against individual groups is a breach of the Olympic Charter," he wrote, "and not least the contract that every host nation enters into with the IOC. The IOC's president has made this clear to the Russian hosts." Good on him for sticking up for gays, I think, but agree not to press him on it. (Yes, good on him, but really, this is a sensitive topic?)

Back at the table, I wonder if the prince has his sights set on bringing the Games to Denmark? "Well," he smiles, "if you are a proud citizen of your country, that would be a dream, some would say a utopian one. And, of course, I have that dream, but right now we have to be realistic: we are a small country and being in a recession is maybe not the best time." (Good. Fred knows about the recession. Now tell your wife!)

The prince is a keen competitive sailor and in his 20s was a member of the Danish Navy's elite Frogman Corps, equivalent to the US Navy SEALs (his nickname was Pingo). He has run several marathons and in August this year took part in an international Iron Man competition, completing a 3.8 kilometre swim, a 180 kilometre bike ride and a full marathon in under 11 hours. How does he find time among public and family duties to keep up that level of fitness? "I make time because I love sport (and hate the wife)," he says. "Fortunately, I can combine my passion with a duty, which is to show people through example that physical exercise is extremely important for health and to counteract obesity." (Fred, please read a better suggestion by Anne Sophie Hermansen)

Before her marriage, Mary Donaldson was an accomplished horsewoman (says whom?). Does she still ride? She says she hasn't had much time for it since the children arrived. "Maybe I'll get back to it when Vincent and Josephine are a bit older." (Gotta love the implication that she's busy being a hands-on mother to four young children, instead of the truth of trying to get her international superstar on and grab up all the freebie clothes she can before the gravy train hits Divorce Station.) She was also on a career ladder (stuck on a rung and about to take a fall) as an advertising account executive and since her marriage has applied the same rigour and ambition to her public role. Her interests include children's health, women's rights and the plight of isolated and excluded citizens. She chose carefully, she has said, "otherwise the danger is you become nothing to everyone". (Bingo!)

"Over the years you build up a platform so you can ensure you work on the issues you burn for," she explains. (Whoa, Mary! Revealing a little too much, maybe? Burning, eh?)

In between launching ships and other ceremonial duties, she has taken increasingly to the international stage, in August travelling to Jordan to visit a UN-run camp for Syrian refugees, the largest in the world. "The consequences of the Syrian conflict for a neighbouring country are enormous," she says. "We wanted to raise awareness of this in Denmark and to show our sympathy with the Jordanians." ("I only know how to pick sides, so the Jordanians must be better than the Syrians. Which is weird because Josephine's godfather Carlos di Borbone-Dos Sicilias gave Bashar Al Assad a special membership in one of his royal orders.")

Jordan has a population of 6.5 million and an influx of 1.5 million Syrian refugees. "They are seen as guests in the country," she explains. "Eighty percent have been absorbed into the local society which creates pressure on the labour market, schools, the health system (CFB says refugees are bad). The refugee camp is very well run - I've visited camps in Africa and it's a different picture - but at the same time, you have to remember these people had enjoyed a standard of life much like many Australians or Danes, then people around them were being shot, houses burned and they were fleeing for their lives. Everything points to this conflict continuing for some time; there is no international solution on the board, so hope is dwindling, frustrations are rising." ("not like Africans. They've always been poor and don't mind living in a lowly way.")

A week before our meeting she had been to Morocco to participate in a program for women trapped in violent relationships. "Violence against women is very pervasive there," she says, "there are cultural reasons. For example, why do they marry their daughters off so early? It's to protect them from the risk of rape. In this part of the world if you are raped you are stigmatised and ostracised from your family." ("In Australia's lower classes, you are praised and celebrated if you shag the local high school baddies in the back of a ute. Totally different.")

The prince says her visit got a lot of media coverage "because you are a woman (foxxy-woman) and because of your title" (he said both with a thud to bring madam back down to earth). She nods. "In these countries, the old traditional constitutional monarchies have a lot of power. It was King Mohammed [of Morocco] who eventually ensured a new progressive law to protect women. But there is still a long way to go." (Er, Morocco's king is trying out reforms, yes, but they are pretty much still an absolute monarchy.)

The royal couple have been separately to visit Danish troops in Afghanistan, the prince travelling into the operational zone of Helmand Province. "I was very keen on getting as far out in the sharp end as possible," he says. There's a surprise.

"Yes, there's a surprise," agrees his wife with a wry smile. ("He just RUNS from my sharp ends!" Oh, Fred, jab back at you! The passive aggression runs both ways!)

"Well I wanted to meet the boys in their watchtowers and forward operating bases," says the prince. "You talk to these young guys who have had their first blood, to be honest. They go out as boys and they come back as men, not crippled or in bags, hopefully, but scarred for life, not always negatively but it marks them deeply." ("This starter marriage of mine has taught me plenty, but mostly that I deserve to be loved and spoken to nicely and not ignored or belittled, but lifted up in mutual respect.")

When his wife went to Afghanistan, he says, the troops were surprised to see a woman coming out of the aircraft in olive drabs. "Yes," she says, "I'm a Lieutenant in the Home Guard, so I was wearing my uniform." (but no hat, because Daisy didn't say anything when I asked her if I should bring a hat. She likes me to wear a hat. So I didn't have to worry about hat pins, either. But I wore a cap on my head and caps are kind of like hats. But you don't have to use hat pins or I guess they'd be called cap pins. That is, if they existed.)

Oh good, I say, let's talk about fashion. The princess has been voted Europe's best dressed royal in polls. "Well," she says, "some may think that, others that I'm the worst." (Hi, Mary!)

Her husband frowns. "That's not true," he says loyally. "If so, we will hunt them down and smoke them out of their holes!" (he says sarcastically in a typical Derfie passive-aggressive move to shut Madam up because yes, smoking people out of their holes because they criticise Mary's dress sense makes SO much sense. Good one, Fred.)

Before her marriage Mary was, she says, "a jeans and T-shirt (blue nylon free-with-purchase Nike bag) girl, so it's been a learning curve. Clothes are very much part of the job and you slowly find what your uniform is, what suits and feels comfortable. I'm very fond of Danish designers, but I also wear other designers and high-street brands, too. Basically I wear what I like (because it's not like I have to pay for any of it!)."

Denmark is a famously egalitarian society and questioning people in the street elicited a similar response each time: "nobody is above anyone else; the royals are one of us". ("I haven't yet gotten the memo that they actually occupy a level of living that is not only disgusting, but that I pay for and don't challenge".)

The four royal palaces are grouped around an octagonal courtyard through which anyone can wander at will, and though there are photogenic sentries in busby hats at each of the main doors, security is unobtrusive. The prince regularly visits schools and other institutions (looking for nubile blondes). "By the time he is king, everyone will feel they know him," his private secretary tells me (with a wink).

How do the royal couple preserve their privacy? "By going out in the city on our bikes, walking to school with the children (hitting cyclists with our large SUVs, speeding in our freebie cars at great risk to others, taking free clothing from fashion boutiques)," says the prince. "This way, people are used to seeing us and it's no big deal." The two older children go to state schools (because the Krebs Skole entrance exam might not have been surmountable) and the twins to a local kindergarten, often taken there by their father in a tricycle with a boxcar on the back, a common family possession here.

In a recent survey, Danish people emerged as the happiest in the world. What is their secret?
"A secure life," says the princess, "and a well developed social system; not many people fall through the net (I sure as hell don't! Wha hae!). And shared values, I would say; that sense of equality you were talking about. (Equality in everyone agreeing to pay me loads of money to be a princess that refuses to mix with the peasants.)"

Later this month, the Crown Prince and Princess will travel to Australia for (Looker Me! Tour #7 and) the 40th anniversary of the completion of the Sydney Opera House, designed by Danish architect, Jørn Utzon. As part of the celebrations there will be a series of rooms showcasing Danish design. "We are very proud of the depth of design tradition here," says the prince. "It applies to anything from a spoon to a bicycle." (nothing snarky here. It's true. Holiday in Denmark, y'all.)

The princess notes that it is 56 years since Utzon won a design competition for a dedicated opera house at Bennelong Point (Utzon moved his office to Sydney in 1963). "It is incredible that Utzon had the vision to use the site in the way he did, and for Australia to nod and say yes to it. That was really strong for such a young nation. It is bound up in a lot of national pride, for Australia and for Danes, too. We are touched to be invited to mark the anniversary of the day 50 years ago that the two countries said yes to each other." (even though Utzon was treated horribly by Australia and made good on his promise never to return.)

Beside her, the prince looks up startled. "I thought you were talking about us, saying yes to each other 50 years ago." His wife smiles. "That was in another life, Frederik." (Would you just go along with the destiny thing, PLEASETHANKYOUVERYMUCH? I crafted this at our engagement, and I think it works.)

But there is a symmetry, I suggest. The prince nods. "Yes, almost destiny, like it was written." (Joizus, was that so difficult? No.)

We take a break and as I enter the courtyard, I hear a shout - a "Let's go!" sort of shout - and look round to see the prince riding out of the palace gate wearing round goggles like a Spitfire pilot, leaning forward, pedalling furiously across the cobblestones on his tricycle, off to collect the twins from kindergarten (and get the hell away from this madness because being around his wife has a negative effect on his mood).

"Jeezus, Fred, look at me LOVINGLY!"

 

"That is NOT LOVINGLY!"

 

"I'm over here dammit!"

 

"Hold me TIGHTER!"

 

"And CLOSER! Stop gripping my arm so hard! Wipe that stupid look off your face."

 

"The photographer said to PULL ME IN. Joizus, just pretend I'm blonde, ok?"

 

 

 

Photos: Franne Voigt