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2004-05-14 hurra! (utc+1)

Kronprinspar!

Hurra! It's kronprinsess Knudella, now!

Although I was a bit taken aback when nobody did the "richer or poorer [as if], better or worse" stuff. Apparently they don't do marriage wovels in the Danish - a "Ja" or two suffices.

But now they're out, and Kronprinsfred has got a hat on sillier, I think, than anything I've ever seen his missus wear. Bad Kronprinsfred to be trying to upstage her!

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2004-05-14 13:54

Sigh

I don't use my laptop much, so the virus checker thing was out of date, and it refused to update so I said to the admin man, "Hey, my virus checker is out of date!" and he said "Bring bring!" but my email account logged me out and I didn't notice so I didn't know, and then I went to send an email and logged back in and he'd said "Bring bring!" and I took took, and it turns out that it hadn't been service packed (it was in tune when we bought it, for sure) and I'll get it back when it's good and ready AND SO MUCH FOR ANY DANISH ROYAL WEDDINGSES.

"Not especially" does not exhaust the extent to which I am pleased by this, but I am after all a master of litotes.

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2004-05-14 12:03

Nationalisme and the Logique

(The Danish comedy toy soldiers in the R�dhustorget (?) are all dressed in red with busbies; I had no idea other countries did that. Good that they're not goose-stepping, though.)

Now, one of the key ingredients in the Yoorpean nationalismes that based themselves on vernacular languages is the invention of an origin myth for (i.e., of) the speakers of a given langwidge, by which the motley assortment of persons who speak it and spoke it in the past are welded in the imagination into a unified folk. This invention is characteristically passed off as a reawakening - it is a characteristic of myth (see L�vi-Strauss, "The Structural Study of Myth") that it both refers to an archaic past and and acts as a framework for interpreting the present and future.

These National Reawakening movements, as is well known, sprung up especially in the second half of the 19th century.

Yesterday, I happened to be flicking through an introductory book on mathematical logic - as you do - which started by summarising some of the history of the subject. Strikingly, it took 1850 as an admittedly arbitrary date for the start of the discipline in its modern form. And of course everyone knows that Boole's original book (from round about then) on symbolic logic was modestly title The Laws of Thought. It posed, which is to say, as a (re)discovery of something that had been there all along but neglected, and a revival of a Glorious Tradition going back to Aristotlean antiquity that had since fallen upon hard times, and proposed itself as the unifying foundation and cornerstone of the glorious mathematical enterprise.

It seems to me, in other words, that the widespread fallacy that logic (and/or set theory) is in some way the true foundation of mathematics is in fact the legacy of an unusually successful variant of nationaliste ideology.

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2004-05-14 kongelig! (utc+1)

Don't tell anyone

But I've booted my laptop into windows, swiped the last port in the room's hub and thieved back the power lead from my (absent) colleague to watch DR's coverage in glorious WindozeVision(TM). Danish is notoriously weird to listen to in any case, and tinny codecced Danish sounds like German Daleks trying to speak Norwegian over a bad phone line, so I'm not getting an awful lot out of the commentary. But there's a lot of persons out on the streets of Shoppingharbour, I can tell you.

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2004-05-14 morning (utc+1)

Today is the day!

Today, Varied Reader, is the day we've been waiting for for so so long! Yes, my order from akademibokhandeln is here at last, and the shipping cost me a tidy 148 SEK (~11 GBP), which isn't really all that ouchy.

But today is a special day for other reasons also: it is Knudella's Big Day! I don't think we'll be able to keep up with events, not least because I want to watch them, but here's some handy advice for you, Varied Reader, if you're getting hitched in the near future:

T�nk p� att frakta kl�der att ha dagen efter vigseln till det hotell d�r ni spenderar br�llopsnatten. Det �r inte s� kul att �ta frukost i brudkl�nning och frack. Och kl�der �r inget man vill sl�pa p� under vigseln och festen.

Be sure to take clothes for the day after the wedding to the hotel where you spend the wedding night. It's not so cool to eat breakfast in a wedding dress or morning suit. And nobody wants to bother about clothes during the wedding or reception.

Words, there, not other than of wiseness, I'm sure we'll all agree.

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2004-05-13 14:46

Whether the shredding of a bridegroom's socks is a pagan act

Objection 1. That the custom is favoured among the unlearned and irreligious peasantry.

Objection 2. That it is a ceremony invoking of demonic entities and magickal or occult powers.

I answer that, the custom is innocent in its practice, and even laudable in its intent to encourage fidelity; as we have been assured by the authorities competent in these matters:

Det med at klippe str�mperne i stykker, g�r man jo for, at brudgommen ikke skal g�re sine hoser gr�nne over for andre kvinder i fremtiden.

Whereof to cut into pieces stocking, as is assuredly for the purpose that the bridegroom shall in the future refrain and desist from the making green of his hosiery in relation to other ladies.

wherein the reference to green hose has been further established and demonstrated to have this meaning, that:

Det udtryk "at g�re sine hoser gr�nne" betyder at indsmigre sig hos �n ved h�flighed og galanteri, og det brugtes ofte om erotiske tiln�rmelser.

The expression "to make one's stockings green" means to ingratiate oneself to one by means of courtesies and gallantry, and is employed most often in connexion with fleshly overfamiliarities.

It is thus seen that there is nothing objectionable in the intent or in the enactment of this practice.

Reply to Objection 1. The custom is also practiced among the royalty and aristocracy of the land: � Frederik f�r klippet sokkerne - som det ogs� skete for grev Jefferson ved sit bryllup med prinsesse Alexandra af Berleburg. � ("Frederik gets cut-up socks, as also happened to count Jefferson on his marriage to prinsess Alexander of Berleburg.")

Reply to Objection 2. No such invocations are attested or have been demonstrated. Not only is the ritual intended to promote the virtue of marital fidelity, on which we can hardly expect the demonic hosts to bestow their approval, but it is declared by all participants to be � en slags symbolik i l�jerne � ("a kind of symbolic play").

[The choice of style is PF's, the execution mine, the link Anna Louise's, and the folklore entirely genuwine.]

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2004-05-13 samwidge (utc+1)

Balkan bards!

Perhaps you're wondering where you can find audio clips of the recitals of traditional epic poems by illiterate Yugoslavian (as they were then) bards (and don't talk to me about Harvard, until you've sampled all of the zero (0) clips they currently have available).

Perhaps, though, you aren't, in which case you won't need this. I quite like it, and I was put out when it cut out.

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2004-05-13 fika (utc+1)

And another thing...

Was I unfair to Mr Anderson's book by claiming that his conception of nationalisme was unduly narrow? Such a something has not gone unsuggested, but I stand by my opinion. So, for that matter, does Mr Anderson:

It would, I think, make things easier if one treated [nationalism] as if it belonged with "kinship" or "religion", rather than with "liberalism" or "fascism".

Imagined Communities, p.5

Imagine a book on kinship (or religion) that claimed it initially arose in the late 18th century in Spanish colonies in the Americas as a response to the parochialism of the imperial Spanish court and the effects of the spread of print capitalism (especially newspapers) and you will have some idea of the extent to which Anderson declines to follow his own suggestion.

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2004-05-13 morning (utc+1)

Nuptuation nonsenses

�1. Vroom vroom!

SCANDINAVIAN CAR COMPANY Saab has given Mary Donaldson and Prince Frederik a brand new Saab Convertible as a wedding gift.
[...]
The gift from Saab further underlines the bond shared by neighbouring Scandinavian countries.

Could I interest you in a guess which one Saabs come from, Bruce? (The article doesn't say.)

�2. Heir conditioning:

On the eve of their nuptials, the internet betting agency, betxpert.com, is offering odds of 55-1 that Ms Donaldson, 32, will have a child with the dashing, former naval diver Frederik this year, 1.7-1 for 2005 and 2.35-1 by 2006.

�3. A rose by a more than usually other name:

"A flower could be mistaken for a bomb and we don't want to cause any unnecessary scares," police spokesman Flemming Steen Munch told The Associated Press.

�4. I bet he says that to all the prinses:

"For us it doesn't matter that he's a prince or a plumber," her father, John Donaldson, said of future son-in-law Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark. "It's just two young people who are in love."

�5. Tim Tams, those archetypal Tams of Timness!

In the lead-up to Friday's royal wedding of Danish Crown Prince Frederik to Tasmania's Mary Donaldson the Danes are having a love affair not just with Mary, who is gracing the covers of newspapers and magazines across the tiny country, but with everything they can find from the Great Southern Land.

Vegemite, Tim Tams and Cherry Ripes are all appearing in Danish supermarkets.

�6. We'll keep getting second opinions till we get the right second opinion:

(audio of Mary Donaldson speaking Danish)

That's Mary Donaldson speaking Danish on television during the race - the general consensus, not bad for a beginner.

COMMENTATOR: How's her Danish? Well as well as you could expect I think.

PHILIP WILLIAMS: That's a very diplomatic answer.

COMMENTATOR: Yes, it is. Her Danish - I understood what she said, but of course if you want to know about grammar, her grammar's not alright yet.

�7. Frederik, Frederick; he's just plain Kronprinsfred to us!

Item:

The Tasmanian Greens are to send Danish Crown Prince Frederick and Tasmanian Mary Donaldson a photographic essay on Tasmania's forests as a wedding present.

Item:

Tasmania's Governor and avowed republican Richard Butler will have an audience with the Queen during a two-week trip to Europe next month.

Mr Butler leaves for Europe on May 4 to attend the wedding of Tasmanian-born Mary Donaldson to Denmark's Crown Prince Frederick.

Item:

Tasmanians will give what is described as a unique piece of art or craft to Mary Donaldson and Denmark's Crown Prince Frederick.

Of course, the spelling of "Knudella" is universally atrocious, but what can you do?

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2004-05-12 18:16

Why I am not remotely neo-scholastique

It was all John Holbo von Timber's idea:

Let me stick with philosophy, which I know a little about. You may dislike analytic philosophy, think it is a meaningless sort of scholastic sideshow about nothing. You may think our problems are just updates of good old "how many angels can dance on the head of of a pin?" But at least you can find signs directly you to the room in which that little puzzler is being intensely pondered. And little cubbies off from there: morris dancing on the head of a pin. Breakdancing on the head of a pin. Maybe it's all meaningless. But if you have some modest contribution to make - on the assumption that it's not all meaningless - there is a place to make that contribution where it can be heard, in all its modest non-glory.

That angels on a pin thing, though, intrigues me. It is the canonicalest of silly questions, but it is also widely an example of an unfair dismissal of a perfectly serious and reasonable question, albeit one that no longer makes sense to most of us.

The Straight Dope has an opinion on the origins of this:

Fact is, Aquinas did debate whether an angel moving from A to B passes through the points in between, and whether one could distinguish "morning" and "evening" knowledge in angels. (He was referring to an abstruse concept having to do with the dawn and twilight of creation.) Finally, he inquired whether several angels could be in the same place at once, which of course is the dancing-on-a-pin question less comically stated. (Tom's answer: no.) So the answer to your question is yes, medieval theologians did get into some pretty weird arguments, if not quite as weird as later wise guys painted them.

This is smugger than necessary from someone who doesn't give a useable reference, certainly, but a little googling turns up the horse's mouth's view. Take it away, St Thomas:

Whether several angels can be at the same time in the same place?

[...]

I answer that, There are not two angels in the same place. The reason of this is because it is impossible for two complete causes to be the causes immediately of one and the same thing. This is evident in every class of causes: for there is one proximate form of one thing, and there is one proximate mover, although there may be several remote movers. Nor can it be objected that several individuals may row a boat, since no one of them is a perfect mover, because no one man's strength is sufficient for moving the boat; while all together are as one mover, in so far as their united strengths all combine in producing the one movement. Hence, since the angel is said to be in one place by the fact that his power touches the place immediately by way of a perfect container, as was said (1), there can be but one angel in one place.

(Angels are not material entities, which is why we need another reason to prevent their co-location.)

And Thomas Aquinas's place in the history of ideas is not in any dispute, for sure. The point about scholasticism that makes Holbo Von Timber's suggestion so attractive is precisely that it was a very sophisticated and serious body of thought that I and many others simply happen not to care about since we share none of its assumptions and have no interest in its conclusions.

(It's occurred to me while writing that Thomism is still central to the Roman Church in ways pleasingly similar to the role of neo-Scholastique philosophy in the Anglophone academy, but on balance I think I'll not go there.)

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2004-05-12 15:16

Sm�rg�spost

�1. Singalong-a-science!

The Internet is so full of wonders, it's a wonder it doesn't burst, isn't it?

Do you know what longitude, latitude, longitude
Do you know what longitude, latitude, longitude mean?
Longitude, latitude, longitude, latitude,
Yes, I know what longitude, latitude mean!

Longitude and Latitude

I do, at that.

[via mimi]

�2. Ask an England wicket-keeper!

What's the cricket like in Papua New Guinea?
Well, not that great. They had an ICC qualifying game recently, but I don't think it was that successful. I usually keep an eye out in the papers when they're playing in tournaments, though.

(Geraint Jones - for it is he! - was born in PNG to Welsh parents and grew up in Australia. He now plays for England, and quite right too.)

�3. Forsk me senseless!

Olaf Aagedal doesn't seem to have published anything on the anthropological aspects of the 2001 Norwegish kronprins wedding that made an honest prinsess of kronprinsess Mette-Marit, but we did turn up this tidbit on Norway's 17th of May celebrations. It is in, for some reason, Norwegish:

Nasjonaldagens symbolmakt har ogs� bidratt til et nasjonalt stemningsskifte i forhold til innvandring. Da den pakistanske kvinnen Rubina Rana ble valgt til leder av Oslos 17. mai-komite, ble hun f�rst m�tt med drapstrusler. Senere utviklet det seg til en symbolsk maktkamp mellom de som oppfattet hennes deltagelse som en forurensning av det norske, og de som s� p� dette som en utvidelse og fornying.

- Hennes vandring opp Karl Johan 17. mai 1999 bidro til � legge ny mening til den norske 17. mai-arenaen. I dag virker et bilde av et barnetog med lyshudede og lysh�rete norske barn nesten gammeldags. Dette eksempelet viser hvordan nasjonale symbol og ritual fungerer som spr�k i en politisk diskusjon, hevder Aagedal.

The national day's symbolic power has also contibuted the national change in mood regarding immigration. When the Pakistani woman Rubina Rana was chosen to lead Oslo's 17th of May committee, she was initially met with death-threats. Later it developed into a symbolic power struggle between those who experienced her participation as a contamination of the Norwegian [folk], and those saw it as a development and a renewal.

Her procession up Karl Johan [Oslo's main street] on the 17th of May 1999 contributed to the making of a new meaning to the Norwegian May 17 arena. Today, the picture of a childrens procession with light-skinned and fair-haired Norwegian children seems almost out-dated. This example shows how national symbols and rituals function as a language in political discussion, hevds[?] Aagedal.

Well hved!

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2004-05-12 fika (utc+1)

Prinsessor!

�1. Omigod - Orthodoxy overkill!

Prinses Madeleine's dress sense is being dared to be criticised:

Linne med spetskant. Spetsiga skor. Turkosa detaljer.
Madeleine �r s� r�tt att hon blir fel.

Linnen with pointed edges. Pointy shoes [pointy pointy!]. Turquoise detailing.
Prinsess Madeleine is so right she's wrong.

Trendanalytikern Cay Bond has his or her claws out, for sure. And this is certainly a worry - with Madde studying her earnest little heart out and now losing her edge in matters sartorial, the Good Prinsess/Bad Prinsess dynamic with her elder kronprinsess Vickan could be at risk.

The very Dialectique of the Swedish court is under threat, Varied Reader, and you may be sure I shall be keeping a close eye on this. She's got rings on both ring fingers, incidentally, as our upside-down correspondent Anna Louise points out. Does this mean anything in 'Wegian?

�2. En Rigtig Prinsess!

BT's headline for Knudella's attendance at a banquet, in a proper prinsessly dress, with proper prinsessly sparklies (hand-me-downs from the late prinsess queen (sorry, Your Ingstress!) Ingrid, since Knudella didn't come accessorised with her own) is one on which we shall not seek to improve, although they don't really do all that business with the mattresses and the pea these days, I am assured.

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2004-05-12 morning (utc+1)

Monday Review of Stuff.

Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities.

The first edition of this was published in 1983, and the first thing you need to know about it was that it launched a tidal wave of research into nationalism and it's a compulsory read if you're studying the subject. It is also, thankfully, well-written and informative.

Anderson complains in the introduction to the second edition that insufficient attention has been paid to his argument that America (particularly Latin America) is the original source of nationalism. He argues that the concept of "American" arises from second-class status creoles (ie, American-born pure blood Spanish) were accorded in Spain - Spanish-born administrators were sent out, but career opportunities for creoles in Spain were very limited. (This may look like a form of proto-nationalism on behalf of the "Spanish", and it begs the question even to use the adjective, but Anderson provides at least materials from which a defence could be constructed.)

Compressing vigorously, and allowing the concept of "Spanish" the slack (or structural ambivalence if you prefer) it requires, "American" arises from the need to solve the structuralist formula

Not born in Spain:Can't be Spanish::Not born in America:Can't be X

for X.

And there you are! Anderson situates this in a much wider context in the Sweep O' History, with the decline of plurivernacular (his word) dynastic regimes, the decline of sacral languages (eg, Latin) and the communities they defined (eg, Christendom), the creation of new models of time, the rise of print capitalism, the growing interest (in Romantic Europe) philological studies of vernaculars and their impact on the growing literate classes of bourgeois administrators, the modular character of the idea of nationalism once it had been invented, and, of course, a pony.

I'm not even going to sketch how he does all that (unless someone offers me a paid-by-the-word gig): read the book, you won't regret it.

The biggest carp I have is that the Sweep O' History approach masks the essential anthropological issue at stake - Anderson defines a nation as an "imagined community, which is imagined as inherently limited and sovereign" (quoting from memory, sorry) but if you skip the sovereignty requirement then this applies to any social grouping in which not all persons are acquainted with each other - and there are plenty of tribal structures which fit that bill. You could even widen the scope of community further to encompass the diachronic ("time") dimension and ask how societies imagine themselves in community with their (Glorious) ancestors - Anderson does so in the context of the many if not varied National Reawakenings of 19th century Europe, but has nothing to compare it with.

All this, it could be correctly countered, is beyond the scope of the book, and the book is certainly very excellent as it is; I'm just sayin', OK?

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2004-05-11 15:55

The crazy world of "because"

Cause and effect: such a duality probably never occurs - in reality there stands before us a continuum of which we isolate a couple of pieces; just as we always perceive a movement only as isolated points, therefore do not really see it, but infer it.

�112, The Gay Science, Nietzsche

As included in the Penguin Nietzsche Reader, ed. & trans. R J Hollingdale. I skipped the meme a while back on influential books, but this is certainly top of my list. It cured immediately cured me of any lingering traces of interest in Neo-Scholastic ("Analytic") philosophy, and has been the rotten goat carcass in the polluted well of my intellect ever since, although I've never reread it. (I don't think I even finished it the first time, actually - I do not deeply dig all the �bermensch malarkey.)

In any case, I'm declaring this week to be "Critique Of Causality Week", to fill in the slack between prinsessgossiptidbits, which is nice.

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2004-05-11 samwidge (utc+1)

It isn't easy being a prinsess!

�1. Mette-Marit in traditional dress

The things she does for her country, isn't it?

Har du sjekket om bunaden fortsatt passer? Det b�r du gj�re snarest, for n� varsles det godt, gammeldags bunadsv�r p� 17. mai, med kj�lig nordavind over hele landet.

Have you checked your Traditional Folk Costume looks OK for the values of OK that prevail in such matters? You'd better get on with it, because good old-fashioned Traditional Folk Costume weather on the 17th of May, with a chilly north wind over the whole country.

�coutez et r�p�tez, my Norwegish chums: "Oh but this is very terrible, the moose has eaten my Traditional Folk Costume! Yes, again!"

�2. Another party? Do we have to?

Spare a thought for Sweden's prinsessor:

De svenska kungabarnen �ker till K�penhamn p� onsdag f�r brudparets fest p� nattklubben Vega.
- De reser hem igen dagen efter f�r att fira prinsens 25- �rsdag. Sedan �ker de tillbaka p� fredag f�r att n�rvara p� br�llopet, s�ger Ann-Christine Jernberg, pressekreterare vid hovet.

The Swedish royalchildrens are off to Shoppingharbour on Wednesday for the happy couple [Kronprinsfred and Knudella's] party at the nightclub Vega.
"They're coming back the day aftre for to celebrate the prins's 25th birthday. Then they'll be back on Friday for the wedding", said Ann-Christine Ironmountain, the court's press secretary.

Who's this Ann-Christine Ironmountain, and what have you done with Elizabeth Tralalah-Washstand you fiends?

�3. En bebis, tv� bebisar, f�r m�nga bebisar

Knudella's new job is of course the making of royal bebisar, and she's certainly game:

Mary og Frederik vil gerne have mange b�rn, siger hun i interview i dag i Politiken.

Knudella and the Kronprinsfred are keen to have many childrens, she says in an interview with Politiken today.

Attagirl! Future generations of prinsess crazy bladeteers will reap the rich rewards of this forward thinking policy.

�4. Fil kand or bust!

Prinsessan Madeleine har nu beslutat att satsa fullt ut p� sina konststudier. Hennes m�l �r en fil kand-examen i konstvetenskap.

Prinsess Madeleine has now decided to go all the way with her art studies. Her goal is a fil kand exam in art studies.

It is good to have goals, is it not?

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2004-05-11 morning (utc+1)

An Interpretor Speaks!

Few things are more intrinsically visual than interpreting, and the BBC is to be commended for this foto story:

In 1973, when the UK joined, it was thought English would become more predominant. But it didn't because the diplomats posted in Brussels knew French.

French lost its influence with the 1995 enlargement, when Austria, Finland and Sweden joined, because very few representatives from these countries knew French.

Bad Swedishes, not to waggle with the tongueage of Moli�re! And after all the nice French words like balkong and restaurang that Swedish has borrowed! (Swedish always uses -ng for word final nasals in French loans, which is not at all amusing.)

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2004-05-10 16:36

White-knuckle shopping

I was thinking maybe it was coming up to time for my annual rant about Swedish InterWebNet bookshops that don't ship to Abroad, so I went and checked and - lo and behold! - Akademibokhandeln will ship to your door wherever it happens to be. (Mine is on the border between my house and the world outside; where's yours?)

There's a catch, though: "Vid alla leveranser till adresser utanf�r Sverige debiteras fraktkostnad" ("With all deliveries to addresses outside Sweden postage costs will be added.")

This is no small thing - the last Swedish InterWebNet bookshop that I used explicitly cited the extortionate postal rates as the reason they stopped shipping overseas. Scary enough, but Akademibokhandeln doesn't estimate the costs up front, or even in the email to confirm the order. So the first I'm going to know about it is when the invoice or a bank statement arrives.

I will blog about it, of course, when the time comes but you will probably be able to hear the reaction first.

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2004-05-10 samwidge (utc+1)

Prinsessor studies

There at a board by tome and paper sat,
With two tame leopards couch'd beside her throne,
All beauty compass'd in a female form,
The Princess; liker to the inhabitant
Of some clear planet close upon the Sun,
Than our man's earth; such eyes were in her head,
And so much grace and power, breathing down
From her arch'd brows, with every turn
Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands,
And to her feet.

[From "The Princess" [sic], A. L. Tennyson]

�1. The woodwork, slightly outcrept of

Beware! There's scholarship afoot. First, a contrast between Then and Now:

Blivande drottningars viktigaste egenskap var l�nge att vara av kunglig b�rd, f�r att styrka dynastiernas prestige och skapa allianser. I dag �r det snarare tv�rtom. Det �kar populariteten att prinsarna gifter sig med vanliga kvinnor. Det menar id�historikern Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen, som doktorerat med avhandlingen "Kungen �r en kvinna".

The future queens' most important quality was for a long time to be of royal stock, to strengthen the dynasty's prestige and form alliances. Today it's rather the opposite. It increases popularity that prinses marry ordinary wimmins. So says historian of ideas Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen, whose doctoral thesis was called "The King is a Woman".

And more of pretty much the same:

Allt fler kungligheter v�ljer att gifta sig med "Svenssons".
- Det har tagit slut p� prinsar och prinsessor, s�ger Herman Lindqvist, historiker och f�rfattare.

More and more royal persons are choosing to marry commoners.
"It's all over for prinses and prinsessor", says Herman Lindqvist, historian and author.

�2. Not so fast, Vickan!

In a reassuringly traditional move, kronprinsess Vickan of Swedenland is under pressure from her daddy - her daddy is the king! - to dump her steady boyfriend. Allegedly, of course.

Orsaken �r att kungen anser att Daniel Westling, 30, inte duger som gem�l till en blivande drottning, enligt Expressens k�lla i hovet.
- Under senare tid har kungen b�rjat tycka att det har g�tt f�r l�ngt och att det nu �r h�g tid att f�rh�llandet tar slut f�r att Victoria ska ha en chans att i lugn och ro finna en annan man, s�ger k�llan till Expressen.

The reason is that the king thinks that Daniel Westling, 30, won't do as a consort for a future queen, according to Expressen's sources at the court.
"Recently the king has started to think that it's gone on too long and it's high time that the relationship finished so that Victoria has a chance to find another man in peace and quiet," said said source to Expressen.

"Another man?" yami will be terribly disappointed at such prejudgings of gender, for sure...

�3. Knudella interview highlights, Ozzie style

FORMER Sydney real estate agent Mary Donaldson says she believes it was her destiny to marry Crown Prince Frederik, the heir to the Danish throne.

I've seen lawyer and IT consultant given as former jobs. Is there anything Knudella can't do?

More :

The interviews, Ms Donaldson's first public utterances since her engagement press conference last October, took up more than five pages of Politiken, Copenhagen's most influential broadsheet.

She has given up her Australian citizenship and joined Denmark's Lutheran Evangelical Church in order to marry the prince, and her comments on the sacred nature of marriage will be seen as a way of reassuring Danes that she shares their conservative views on life. Her move into volunteer work emulate the caring, open role of her new mother-in-law, Queen Margrethe II.

Conservative views on life? The Danes?

�3. What a boat race!

Knudella defends her nation's honour in a boat race, against her famously (trust me) nautical blivande hubby:

"It was not a friendly stoush, no."

�4. Norway's been there, done that, written the report:

Nedtellingen til bryllupet mellom kronprins Frederik og Mary Donaldson er i gang. Danskene har allerede startet feiringen, som kulminerer fredag med vielse i K�benhavn domkirke og bryllupsfest p� Fredensborg slott. Men hva betyr egentlig begivenheten for dansker flest? Det skal et knippe danske forskere finne ut av med norsk hjelp.

The countdown to the wedding between Kronprinsfred and Knudella has begun. [No, really?] The Danes have already started the celebrations, which will culminate with the wedding in Shoppingharbour cathedral and the reception at Fredenborg castle. But what does it all really mean for the Danish public? A team of Danish researchers is finding out, with some Norwegish help.

Because, of course, the Norwegish kronprins married a commoner a while back, so they know all about such things up there:

I 2001 ledet [Olaf Aagedal, forskningsleder ved Diaforsk] et prosjekt st�ttet av Norges Forskningsr�d om den nasjonale og folkelige feiringen av bryllupet mellom kronprins Haakon og kronprinsesse Mette-Marit. Det er dette arbeidet som ligger til grunn for danskenes kulturhistoriske samtidsunders�kelse, som har tittelen "Riget p� den anden ende. Danskerne og Kronprinsbrylluppet 14. maj 2004". Det er Nationalmuseet og Universitetet i K�benhavn, samt flere danske forskningsinstitusjoner som samarbeider om unders�kelsen.

In 2001 Olaf Aagedal, chief researcher at Diaforsk, lead a project supported by the Norwegish Reasearch Council on the national and folkly celebrations of the wedding between kronprins Haakon and kronprinsess Mette-Marit. This same work serves as the foundation for the Danish cultural historical contemporary survey, which has the title "The Kingdom from the Other End. The Danes and the Kronprins wedding 14th May 2004". The National Museum and the Universitetetetet of Shoppingharbour are collaborating, along with several other Danish research institutes.

Riget p� den anden ende has a homepage, hoorah, and the project description is also available. (Both ju p� danska, the latter pdf.)

I am now reminded why I love so much the 'Wegia.

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2004-05-10 morning (utc+1)

Knudella Kash-in

Politiken is capitalising on the Kungligheter kraziness of the Danishes and their consequent willingness to splash the 25 kroners ("crowns") on this interview with the blivende kronprinsess.

That's 2.24 GBP - more than a pint of beer! - for 10 pages of the Danish-flavoured pdf.

Anyway, the interview was done in seven sessions over several months, starting in December, and in recent sessions we are assured that Knudella is almost fluent in the Danish, although her pronunciation tends somewhat towards the careful.

At the 'bladet, meanwhile, our Danish is frankly wretched and it's all a bit of a race against time to process all this stuff before the Friday deadline ("wedding").

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