The Norwegian Royal Court confirmed that the senior members of the royal house, the King, the Queen, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, as well as some members of the court, have all been vaccinated against the swine flu. (more…)
Category: Other bits
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The holiday home debate, round 2
It looked like the last piece in the saga around Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s summer house was over and done with, when they purchased the tiny island outside of Risør. Sure, the purchase might not make much sense to non-Norwegians, tiny cottage located on a rock in the middle of an ocean as it is, but it was settled.
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Julemærket or the Christmas stamp
Today Crown Princess Mary of Denmark will be present at the release of this year’s Julemærke, or Christmas stamp as the English translation would be. The Crown Princess is the patron of the Christmas stamp.
The world’s first Christmas stamp was Danish, the motive was Queen Louise of Denmark, and was released in 1904. Since then, many other countries have also taken up the idea of festive stamps on letters for Christmas.
The proceeds originally went to children who suffered from tuberculosis, but today they go to the Julemærkehjem – the Christmas Stamp Homes. These homes, which have trained adult personnel, are welcoming children who are experiencing problems in their environment, such as bullying, or suffer from nervous diseases sometimes resulting in obesity.
Each year 700 Danish kids are admitted to the 4 homes, and roughly 500 kids are on the waiting list. They pay nothing for the experience – everything is funded by the sale of the Christmas stamps, or extra donations from the public.
Queen Margrethe has been the artist behind the Christmas stamp on several occasions, the first time in 1970, the last (so far) in 2003.
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Tie A Ribbon-project
An 11 year old and her friends in Bodø, in the north of Norway, are the inspiration for the new Red Cross project, Tie a ribbon (Knytt et bånd), in Nordland county.
The 11 year old sendt an e-mail to the local retirement home, asking if she could bring her friends around to visit with the senior citizens there. The group of youngsters got an affirmative answer, and have been spending time in conversation and song with the elders.
On Friday, Crown Princess Mette-Marit visited the retirement home, and was impressed with what she saw.
”I think this visit to Vollen retirement home was very nice, so I would definitely recommend to our own children that they should get in touch with institutions like this one, and ask if they can help. I thought the initiative from these girls was really great, and I think we all should be inspired by that.”
In a recent poll 280,000 Norwegians have said that they feel lonely. Mette-Marit is encouraging the Norwegian people to get together to work against isolation and loneliness in the population.
“To be lonely is not the same as being alone. But it hurts to not have anyone to go to when we feel like we need it. Loneliness can affect everyone, in all stages of life.”
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Yearly Norwegian Charity telethon
This year Crown Prince Haakon is the royal patron of the Norwegian charity telethon, where the money will go to the organization Care.
All over Norway volunteers are walking from door to door, asking for contributions for the organizations, or volunteers have taken upon themselves to collect money in other ways, such as bake sales.
It seems that the Crown Prince and his family are not satisfied by merely being the figureheads – they actually set up their own bake sale to support Care. The bake sale was just outside of Skaugum, close by a popular area where the people on their sunday walks could see them, and purchase a snack for the rest of their trip.
Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit had called together family and friends to help out with the bake sale, and everybody contributed with something on the table. The Crown Princess produced waffles, and the apple juice sold was a product from their own garden.
Crown Prince Haakon urged people to receive the volunteers going from door to door in a positive manner.
The collected funds will go to projects, with special regards to women’s rights, in Mali, Niger, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Burma, Bangladesh & the Balkan area.
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Mette-Marit continuing with her education
Last autumn, the Norwegian court announced that Crown Princess Mette-Marit would be attending part-time master’s level courses, to further her education.
The Crown Princess, who studied development studies at London School of Oriental and African studies when she was living in London, has also studied Philosophy of Life and Ethics at the University of Oslo, and Chemistry and ICT at the University of Agder. Last year, she started at the Master of Management degree at BI Norwegian school of Management, where she took the course “Management; power and opinion”.
Starting this Monday, she will be continuing on the same degree this year; now with the course “Consulting”. She won’t be attending daily classes, instead the course is based around five gatherings during the year, starting this week, and ending with a study trip to Venice, Italy, in April next year.
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4 out of 10 Norwegian MPs support a republic
The state-owned Norwegian television channel, NRK, today reports that during a questionnaire for their programme, Spekter, 4 out of 10 of the members of parliament answered that they would rather prefer a republic in Norway. 1 of 3 said that they would transform Norway to a republic within 20 years. And 30% of the 169 MPs said that the royal house is diminished, to a varying degree.It is interesting to note that despite the Socialist Left’s, which is the only party to have abolishing the monarchy on the party programme, loss of seats in the recent election, there is still an increase in number of republicans.
An explanation for this might be that there are more younger representatives after this election: institutions such as the royal house have less support amongst the young than the older generations.
It may also be a reflection of the various recent press debacles involving members of the royal family, such as Princess Märtha Louise’s so-called Angel School, and the vendetta her husband played out in the press in January/February this year.
Quite a few of the official republicans, however, state that their belief that a republic will be better has nothing to do with the royal family and its members, but rather the principle of the matter.
Coming to the matter from the monarchist side – an article from NTB, has this quote from Torbjørn Røe Isaksen.
“The support of the monarchy in the population is very high, and even when it is at its lowest, there are very few who say that they would like Norway to be a republic.”
The reasons for that may be plentiful – you know what you have, but not what you’ll get, may be one of them.
The Norwegian monarchy was chosen by the people in 1905, in a referendum. One would hope, as a royal watcher as well as a Norwegian, that if there should be any major decisions about it made, that it would be up to the people once again, and not just 169 of them in a building in Oslo.
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Why isn’t Mette-Marit there?
It is soon time for the annual opening of the Norwegian parliament, Stortinget. It opens on Friday the 9th, at 13:00. Every year around the same time, I notice the same question on message-boards – where is Crown Princess Mette-Marit?
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Rania, Haakon and Mette-Marit on CNN
Just a reminder: the programme where Rania, Haakon and Mette-Marit were interviewed by Christiane Amanpour, will air today, Friday. CNNi: 20:00 London | 21:00 Berlin
Amanpour’s interviews can also (one hopes this also will be true of this one) be found on iTunes, for free.
