Princess Not Named

I'd initially decided not to write today because I wasn't home for the greater part of the weekend and even now whenI am there are about five different things I should be doing. But Princess Madeleine had a baby. To paraphrase Suri Cruise, I have to cover that stuff.

Princess Madeleine of Sweden and her husband Chris O'Neill had a daughter on the 20th of February. Congratulations!
[Prinsessan Madeleine och Chris O'Neill fick en dotter den 20 februari. Grattis! That's all the Swedish I learnt from reading the birth announcements.]

The baby, as yet unnamed, is fourth in line to the Swedish throne, following her aunt Victoria, her cousin Estelle (who turned two today. Happy Birthday, Estelle!) her uncle Carl Philip and her mother Madeleine. She was born in New York, and this picture of her leaving the hospital with her parents is all the public has seen of her till now:

Ah, royal babies. The best kind of babies there are.

That being said, I do really have work to do, and so I'm not going to post a thing on this blog until Princess Claire (Luxembourg, I tweeted about it, you'd know if you follow me) has her baby.

I'm lying.

N

UPDATE: Leonore. Princess Leonore, Duchess of Gotland. It's a pretty name, but I now wonder how many times I'll confuse her with Infanta Leonor. Also, I must say, I prefer (Princess) Mia.

Speaking of, 

!!!!!!!!!! 

Isn't that awesome? Zara looks so pretty. And how cute is Mia Grace?

And while I love Prince George to bits, and he'll always be one of my favourite royal babies (Well, until he grows up, that is) I also do prefer Mia Tindall's first official picture to his. As I've said before about the Hunger Games movie, a good camera, in the hands of a photographer with skill, neither of which Michael Middleton had, can do wonders. Take note, William and Kate. And it doesn't hurt that Mia is awake and looking at the camera. Take note, George.

What a week in royal babies.

UPDATE: As predicted, Google searches for Princess Leonore still show up results about Infanta Leonor. Could be a while before they fix that. Maybe once more people know that Leonore's name is Leonore. 

And they released this picture of her!

This is the best week of my life, royally speaking. 

Why Do You Like Benedict Cumberbatch?

Thursday was the 62nd anniversary of The Queen's ascension to the throne. The Queen has now been reigning for over 62 years. The longer she reigns, the more I root for her to surpass Queen Victoria's record. It would be awful if she had to reign for nearly 63 years, only to go down in history as the second longest reigning British monarch. I really hope she makes it.

On Ascension Day a friend of mine asked me, on my Facebook status about Ascension Day, why I like the British Royal Family. I stared. Usually, when people ask me why I like the British Royal Family, it is a verbal question, asked in passing, which allows me to retort with something like "Why do you like Benedict Cumberbatch?" and walk away without answering their question. But this was a written question. On the Internet. I couldn't just ignore it.

I also couldn't answer in in a Facebook comment. I don't think Facebook comments have word limits, but it would be rather bothersome to read paragraph after paragraph when you aren't expecting more than a line. Which is why I decided to answer her question on my blog instead, and post a link in the Facebook thread. No one minds reading paragraph after paragraph on my blog. Well, maybe they mind, but at least they're expecting it. 

Why do I like the British Royal Family? I'm not British, so it isn't patriotism, and I don't particularly care about the other aspects of British (or any) history or government, so it isn't a thirst for knowledge. And my interest isn't just limited to William and Kate and George and other 'celebrity' royals, so it's not only because I'm obsessed with famous people. It's because I'm obsessed with things in general. 

Ever since I learned how to acquire information for myself, I've had a certain something that I was obsessed with. The Lion King. Enid Blyton mysteries. Boarding schools. I would spend all my time either thinking about or reading about or watching that one thing, and it would last until I found the next subject of obsession. The older I got, the longer each obsession lasted. 

When I was about eight years old, I read my first Harry Potter book, and I absolutely loved it. I found it impossible to wait for the new ones to come out, and while I waited I would watch the movies and, as I grew older, read the fanfiction. That obsession soon died; after all, there was only so much you could do after the last movie came out. But although Harry Potter was only temporary, it will always have a special place in my heart. From there began my love for all things British. 

(This is a song by Lauren Fairweather about being a fan of Harry Potter that I quite liked. Listen to it if you want.)

At some point in the middle of the Harry Potter period, I accidentally stumbled across the Princess Diaries series one day in the library and read it. As someone who had just turned thirteen, I was fascinated by Mia Thermopolis. She seemed so grown-up to me, with her high school antics, crushes and subsequent boyfriends, and, of course, tiaras. That didn't last long; I loved her boyfriend, envied her position and wished I was her for about a year before turning fourteen myself and realising that I was doomed to a lonely, tiara-less existence. From there began my love for all things royal.

Then, in 2010, Prince William proposed to his long time girlfriend Kate Middleton, and it was an event that combined my love of all things British with my love for all things royal (I should clarify, I knew that the British Royal Family existed long before William asked Kate to marry him. I have a vague recollection of asking my mother, when I was younger, why Prince Philip was not the King even though he was the Queen's husband. She told me that that was just how it is. My mother didn't have a clue.) Immediately, I Googled Kate and, after a perfunctory look through her Wikipedia page, I had a long decision with one of my friends about whether she or Diana had a better engagement dress. I stand by what I said about Kate choosing a better dress, but now I can see what a rookie mistake it was to compare every little move of Kate's with Diana's and I feel tempted to smack my head against something. 

I forgot about William and Kate in the months that followed, until February, when my school took my entire class to see The King's Speech, probably only because it was likely to win an Oscar. After the movie, we all had to write a report about Bertie's struggle with overcoming his speech impediment and how it gives serves as inspiration to everyone with speech impediments. For some reason, unlike the rest of my class, I did a little bit of research about King George VI and, as it would be every time I read about the royals, one page led to another, which led to another, which led to another. In less than a week, I had gathered enough knowledge about the royal family to make me glad that there was a royal wedding coming up.

I had a holiday on the day of the royal wedding and I was super excited about it. I woke up early, and watched all the royal wedding specials that they were showing on TLC, and watched the guests arrive, exclaiming whenever I recognised anyone. I didn't exclaim very often, and I probably wouldn't do the same if I were to watch a royal wedding now because I'd just be exclaiming the entire time. I didn't know who Princess Beatrice was when she stepped out of the car with her crazy hat, but that didn't stop me from Googling her - and Princess Eugenie too. In fact, I was Googling everybody whose name the hosts of the show mentioned.

And then Kate was on the screen, with her beautiful wedding dress and her dazzling smile and I was enchanted by the fairytale of it all. A prince was marrying a commoner and they would live happily ever after. I'm glad that I got to watch at least one royal wedding without a clue. I'm sure that at Harry's wedding I'm going to be trying to identify as many minor and foreign royals as I can and judging Cressida or whoever based on what I knew of them already. With Kate, I knew nothing. And it was wonderful.

After the wedding was over, I went into a frenzy to find out as much about the new Duchess of Cambridge as was humanely possible. I read about her past, I read about what was expected from her in the future. I couldn't stop. Looking for pictures of her led me to what had become one of my main sources for royal information; The Royal Order of Sartorial Splendor. Order of Splendor, introduced me to the world of foreign royals; Maxima, Charlene, Mette-Marit, everybody. The knowledge that royal families existed outside of the United Kingdom made me wonder if all the royals were somehow related. Spoiler: they are.

By this time I had amassed a substantial amount of royal information. I was leaps and bounds ahead of my peers, and it was evident to everyone that the British Royal Family (who were my favourite, owing to my aforementioned love for all things British) were my new obsession. At that point I figured if I was going to obsess over the royal family, why not go all the way?

What happened next is a bit of a blur, but all of a sudden I went from someone who couldn't tell the difference between Prince William and Prince Harry to someone who spent the entire week fangirling after Prince George was born, and who actually understood the implications of a birth in the family. I spent a lot of time reading and writing about them, either on my blog or on Royal Central, which has given me so much more insight into the royal world than I had earlier, and over time I grew to love the royal family as my own.

Of course, none of this explains why I like the British Royal Family. And honestly, I don't know. Maybe it was because I loved all things British and all things royal. Maybe the wedding just happened to take place at the time when I needed something to latch onto. Maybe I just like Kate's spunk but don't want to judged by people who think that she's a useless model with no better purpose than to produce heirs. I'm not sure. It's kind of hard to explain why you like something, isn't it?

I mean, why do you like Benedict Cumberbatch?

N

Run The World, Girls.

So, another technically member of the royal family who has a Twitter is Mike Tindall. Of course, that is completely unimportant, because Mike Tindall now also has a daughter.

That's right. If you haven't read already, Zara Phillips had a baby girl on Friday. So far, there is no word from the Palace on her name, but she's sixteenth in line to the throne and so she's a royal baby too. Though, and I hate to say this because all royal babies are wonderful, not half as important a one as Prince George. 

Even though they are never going to read this, my congratulations to Zara and Mike. I wish nothing but well for them and their baby daughter. Also, I wish that the entire family shows up for some royal event so we can have pictures.

When I first read the news, my train of thought went something like this: “One more royal baby? Cool! Oh, it’s a girl. Good thing I don’t bet money on these things, because otherwise I would have lost money. This is the Queen’s FOURTH great-grandchild. Her Majesty’s getting quite old. Third great-granddaughter, though. There’ve a lot of girls being born into this family. Princess Madeleine’s going to have a girl too. Lot of girls being born into a lot of royal families. Maybe they’ll call her Margaret. If I tweet about the possibility of them calling her Margaret, will Mike Tindall read it? Does Mike Tindall read posts tagged #royalbaby?” and so on and so forth.

A mostly pointless stream of thoughts, but one stayed in my mind particularly. There are a lot of girls being born into royal families. And now, with these new laws allowing succession of the first born child of the Monarch, irrespective of their gender, they can someday be Queen, no matter how many younger brothers they have. And that got me thinking; is it possible that a society that has been predominantly controlled by men for all these years could someday be ruled over by women? 

Politics are of no interest to me, so when I say 'ruled over by', I'm talking about the heads of the seven major monarchies in Europe - Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. 

Of the current group of rulers, the ones that existed pre-abdications, three are Queens. Two of them, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margrethe, ascended the throne at a fairly young age, due to the unexpected circumstances their fathers' untimely death without any male heirs. Queen Beatrix, however, ascended the throne after her mother abdicated in her favour, and her grandmother had been Queen before that, so the Netherlands are no stranger to a Queen's rule. But, despite a surprisingly modern ratio of kings is to queens, the scale still tips in the favour of the men.

The next generation isn't any better. Worse, in fact. No one, apart from Crown Princess Victoria, is a woman, and most of them are going to rule because they are the elder sibling and not because the laws are biased.

It is the generation after that, the generation that consists of the grandchildren of the present monarchs (except Queen Elizabeth, whose great-grandchild is the one I'm considering, because she is OLD), who range between the ages of 1/2 and 12, that, for the first time in history, there will be more Queens of European nations than there will be Kings. Just look at the list.

FUTURE KINGS

Prince Christian of Denmark, second in line to the throne. 

The most featured baby on my blog. You should know his name and his position in the hierarchy by now.

And that's all. Two. Out of seven. Hopelessly outnumbered. On the other hand, 

FUTURE QUEENS

Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, first in line to the throne.

Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands, first in line to the throne.

Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, second in line to the throne.

Infanta Leonor of Spain, second in line to the throne.

Princess Estelle of Sweden, second in line to the throne.

That's just fantastic, isn't it? And, the best thing is, I'm not so much older than them that I won't be around to see this happen. I will! 

Oh, I can't wait. Only fifty years to go.

~

I'm doing a thing called the 100 Book Challenge on Twitter, where I try and read a hundred books in the year and chart my progress through tweets. So far, I've read one, but you can see how I'm coming along by following me @JustAsSaneAsMe. Also, participate in the challenge yourself. It's fun!

N

#HappyBirthdayKate

It's the Duchess of Cambridge's birthday. She's 32 today. Wish her on Twitter!

No, you can't, she doesn't have a Twitter.

Which brings me to my main subject - royalty on Twitter.
(If you were expecting something more to do with the actual event of Kate turning 32, there will be a post on Royal Central and an article in the Daily Mail which will list 32 facts about the Duchess, more than half of which I will already know. But I'll put links at the bottom of the post for those who want to know more, anyway.)

None of the higher up royals are on Twitter. The Queen obviously isn't, and not just because she's getting on in age, and, if my grandparents are anything to go by, probably doesn't know how to use anything more newfangled than Google. No, she doesn't use it because she's the Queen. She has a certain image to maintain, and it would most certainly be defiled if she sank as low as Twitter, where she would have to be on an equal platform with the likes of Justin Beiber - even more so if she didn't manage to gather as many followers as him.

Prince Charles doesn't have a Twitter either, but Clarence House does. Clarence House is the official residence of the Prince of Wales, and usually they are the first to convey important royal news on the Internet. Like when Prince George was born, or when it was decided that the excitement about Prince George was going down and it was time to christen him to liven things up a little bit.

This is what Clarence House looks like. You can follow them at @ClarenceHouse.

Neither of Princes William and Harry have a recognised Twitter. That doesn't strike me odd - after all, they are a part of The Firm - but they're both still young, and Prince William has an iPhone. What does he do on it if he isn't tweeting?
Last year, it was revealed that Prince Harry did have a Facebook account, which was taken down following the debacle with the pictures in Las Vegas, and a little before that, he said in an interview that he reads almost all the articles written about him even though his father has told him not to. Which is why I wouldn't put it past Harry to have a Twitter too. It's probably called something inconspicuous, though, like Steve or Jim, so if you see someone on Twitter who looks to ordinary to be true, it's probably Prince Harry. Follow that person. (Don't really.)

However, the next in line to the throne (I'm excluding Prince George from this altogether. I don't think he knows how to speak, let alone tweet), the Duke of York, does have a Twitter.

If you're wondering why I've stuck a picture of Prince Andrew in the middle of the post is because he is a relatively obscure royal and not many people even know who he is. For those people, that is the Duke of York. His Twitter is @TheDukeOfYork, but he isn't the only one who uses it. In fact, he hardly uses it at all, just occasionally. His tweets are signed 'AY', for Andrew York.

Another, well, ex-royal with a Twitter, is Andrew's ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York. Her Twitter seems like she actually uses it, which is fitting because she's always struck me as the most different and modern, I suppose, of the otherwise extremely rigid royal family. The Duchess was very interested in Queen Victoria before she got married (and after - she was a producer for the movie, The Young Victoria), so it must have been a dream for her to marry Victoria's great-great-great-grandson. Well, into the family, anyway. Even though she got divorced from Andrew, she never married again, which is why she was allowed to retain the title of Duchess of York. She's very close to her daughters, and sometimes she wears crazy clothes, like she is a 25 year old, not the mother of one. Despite leaving The Firm she's continued to do charity work and one time she did an interview with Cheryl Cole, and it was hilarious. Twitter: @SarahTheDuchess

None of the royals lower than Prince Andrew have a Twitter of which I know, but there is an account for the British Monarchy (@BritishMonarchy) which isn't maintained by any of the members of the family, but is an official account and does post relevant and accurate royal information, so if that's what you want you can follow them.

Good people to follow if you're looking for concise and almost instant information about the British Royal Family are royal correspondents. These are the people who write for newspapers and websites or appear on the news channels to talk about royalty. If you follow too many of them, like I have, and something big happens, like Prince William goes back to school, it does get a little bit repetitive, and a lot of the times it's just one correspondent retweeting another, so choose wisely.

My personal favourites are Dickie and Victoria Arbiter. They're father and daughter - he was a press spokesman for Her Majesty and she is a royal contributor for CNN. Both of them are great fun, especially if you have a fair bit of knowledge about the members and the working of the royal family. You can follow them at @RoyalDickie and @victoriaarbiter.

Also, you should follow Royal Central, because I write for them, and I'm not above blatant promotion of websites which I write for (A link to this post will go onto my Facebook page five minutes after it is published).

Duchess of Cambridge turns 32: Royal Central's article.

N

Good Luck With 2014.

It's the last day of 2013, and what a year it's been. There have been ups and downs and a lot more ups, and not just for the royals but for me too. Of course, no one cares about my life, so I'm just going to skip that altogether.
At the end of last year, I wrote about the year that had gone by. Write might not be the most appropriate word, though. I just stuck in a lot of pictures. Anyway, this year, instead of focusing on the past, I'm choosing to focus on the future. Mainly on what the future holds for the British Royal Family.

At the beginning of this year, there were a couple of major milestones and things to look forward to as far the BRF went. The 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation was approaching and the Duchess of Cambridge was pregnant with the heir to the throne, who would have ruled irrespective of gender. Nothing that big is expected to happen next year, not unless you count Prince George's first birthday as an important milestone. Except, there is someone who can be quite unpredictable.

Prince Harry. As he approaches his 30th birthday, he must be starting to realise that he can't stay unmarried forever.

I really want Prince Harry to get married. I'm not the kind of girl who hankers after royalty, wishing that they were closer to her age but reasoning that an age gap of more than ten years isn't all that much (Lies). I do want to see another royal wedding in England, and I think I'll enjoy it more now that I know who Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie are and understand why they would wear such ridiculous fascinators.
I don't want Prince Harry to get married to Cressida Bonas. I don't remember what I said I thought of her the last time that I wrote a post about her, but I don't like Cressida Bonas. It could just be a thing with Prince Harry's girlfriends, because I didn't like Chelsy Davy at first either, but I'm starting to miss her now that Cressida Bonas might become the new royal wife.

Here are Prince Harry and girlfriend leaving a theater in London

That being said, whatever Prince Harry does is fine with me. If he does get married, I get to watch a wedding, and if he doesn't get married, I get to heave a sigh of relief and continue to hope that something breaks the happy couple apart.

Perhaps the most important thing, according to me, that is happening next year is the Cambridges' tour to Australia and New Zealand in April. I love when royals go on tour, because that means that for the few weeks that they are in a foreign country, they make public appearances every single day. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have previously visited North America and South-East Asia, but what makes their visit Down Under so special is that this time they're taking Prince George.

No, that isn't the Cambridges and Prince George. That's the Wales's and Prince William.

There's a lot of excitement about the fact that Prince George is accompanying them. For seasoned royal watchers, the excitement is all because Prince William was about the same age - nine months - when his parents took him on his first foreign visit, also to Australia. I'm excited because it doesn't seem like there are going to be a lot of opportunities for pictures of Prince George leading up to the visit, but once in Australia, I'll be surprised if he doesn't come out in public at least twice. And public appearances mean pictures. I can't wait.

[I've written a post about a section of the itinerary for the visit on Royal Central, so you can click on this sentence to read that. Additionally, there is a link at the bottom which leads to a more comprehensive itinerary.]

Also, in the next few months, TWO babies will be born into the ever growing royal families worldwide.

The first is the son/daughter of Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall. This will be the first child for Zara and Mike, the third grandchild for Princess Anne (who is already grandmother to Peter Phillips' daughters Savannah and Isla) and the fourth great-grandchild for Queen Elizabeth (who, besides the two children of Peter Phillips mentioned above, is great-grandmother to Prince George). He/she will be 16th in line to the throne, behind his/her mother and ahead of David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley. There is no word from the Palace yet on the gender of the child, but I am betting that it will be a boy and that they will call him Augustus.
The second is the daughter of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Chris O'Neill. Again, the first child for the couple, but second grandchild for the King and Queen, who are already grandparents to Crown Princess Victoria's daughter Estelle.

It is unlikely that either of these children will be given titles upon their birth. Unlike their older cousins, George and Estelle, they will have hardly any claim to the throne, and will lead as normal lives as possible, only mingling with higher-up royalty at weddings and Christmas and that sort of thing. However, despite their lack of proximity to the Crown, Zara and Princess Madeleine are two of my favourite royals, coming second and third, respectively, only to Kate. And it's no secret how much I love Prince George, so I'm certain I'll love their children too. Well, I'll blog about them when they're born, anyway.

That's all with the royal events. There is just one more thing.

In the extremely near future - tomorrow - season 3 of Sherlock airs in the UK. Fangirls on Tumblr are going completely nuts, and understandably so. It's been a two year long hiatus for them. I get restless when Order of Splendor goes on holiday for a week.
The major focus of watchers' interest this season [SPOILERS] is finding out how Sherlock survived a fall off the rooftop. They've been racking their brains for an explanation for months and months, but I honestly don't think it's that important. If there was a question as to whether he was dead or not, their eagerness for answers would be justified, but now that it is very obvious that he is alive, I'm looking forward more to seeing John reacting to Sherlock explaining how he faked his death than to actually listening to Sherlock explain how he faked his death and seeing how much of it tallies with my theory. That being said, I do not have a theory about how Sherlock faked his death.

Something that I don't understand is the disparity between the air dates in different countries. England, obviously, gets to see it first, but then it is a full two and a half weeks before it airs in America, on the 19th, by which time the English will already have seen the final episode. I highly doubt that season 3 is going to end with anything other than a cliffhanger, probably Sherlock announcing his decision to retire from active detective work, and that means that there will be a four day period during which fans on one side of the Atlantic will be pondering this new plot twist, and fans on the other side of the Atlantic will still be trying to figure out how Sherlock didn't die when he jumped off the roof at the end of season 2.

I think it's a little bit odd, but I'm not going to question the folks down at BBC.

~

So, that's all for the year. Hopefully, all of you will keep coming back on Sundays to read the nonsense that I write. Do watch season 3 of Sherlock (unless you haven't seen seasons 1 and 2, in which case watch seasons 1 and 2 first), pray that Prince Harry doesn't get married, and if you live in Australia, go out to see the Cambridges in April. God save the Queen.

Good luck with 2014.

N

Happy Holidays.

I personally don't celebrate Christmas, but it doesn't bother me if someone wishes me a merry Christmas. However, it may bother a few people, and I don't want to be caught with my foot in my mouth (Ha!). So happy whatever it is that you celebrate, dear readers, and because it won't hurt you to do so, please refresh this page after you've finished reading, and read it again. I'm only two hundred views away from five thousand, and I want to reach that milestone before the new year.

You don't actually have to read it again, though.

Here is the Prince of Wales' Christmas card for 2013.

The picture was taken at Ascot in June this year. Why they chose to feature Camilla's granddaughter on their card from 2011, but not the FUTURE KING on this one I will never understand.

The final post for the year will be on Tuesday, the 31st, and in it I will talk about the royals at Sandringham, and discuss the Cambridges' upcoming tour to Australia and New Zealand and other things that I am looking forward to in 2014.

N  

UPDATE:  It's the Queen's Christmas broadcast!

The actual message is fairly boring - all about reflection and contemplation - but it is interspersed with behind the scenes videos from Prince George's christening. That was a lot of fun to watch, especially the moments when Kate actually seemed more like a mother and less like someone whose job is to have nice hair. 

Come back tomorrow.