The Norwegian Minister of Trade and Industry, Trond Giske, is in the middle of assembling a council of young business leaders to give advice where Norway should focus its efforts in the future.
This weekend, it was revealed that Crown Prince Haakon had accepted a position on this council. It ended up with a bit of debate in the papers, where some thought it was a good idea, whereas others thought that it might not be the best thing. The Norwegian monarchy is supposed to be politically neutral, or as politically neutral as they can get.
This would have been moderately fine, if only Giske had asked the Prime Minister about the situation beforehand, and set boundaries as to what the Crown Prince could work with. But he did not do the first thing. (No information on the latter item.) It would still have been problematic regarding the royal house being political neutral, but at least the Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, would not have been caught unaware on the issue.
As a result of the media problems this matter has caused (presumably to Giske, as he’s been the hardest hit by the critique) he has gone in a dialogue with the Palace, and the latest news is that the Crown Prince has withdrawn from the council.
From time to time, interesting picture books for children pop up on the Norwegian market. Some of the time the subject is the royal family. One such excellent book was Olavs første skitur by Tor Bomann-Larsen.
A new one in this category is Kongen som må ut å hente melk by Tora Marie Norberg. (Translation of title: The King who has to go get milk)
The essence of the story is that the King (who bears a fair likeness to King Harald) discover at the breakfast table that he does not have any milk left for his breakfast. So he goes to the royal farm at Bygdøy, only to have problems when he tries to milk the royal cows. It results in him having to go to the store to get the milk there instead.
It is a cute story, and the variety of the illustration, and words, make it a fun read. The play on words – starting the sentence on the page the Queen appears with the words Sånn Ja (the pronunciation of Sonja), and the details of the drawings makes it a fun read also for adults.
The story does require a certain amount of suspending reality, as I don’t think it is very likely that the King cleans all the rooms in the Palace by himself before heading off for bed.
But it is a fun read, and definitely something I would consider reading for young children.
This time, it is a public release from the royal house stating that Crown Princess Mette-Marit has been put on sick leave for the next three weeks by her doctor. The reason for the leave is abrasion damage to the neck vertebrae.
This means that her programme will be cancelled for the next three weeks, and that Crown Prince Haakon will be representing the Norwegian royal house at the Olympic Games in Vancouver from February 12th to February 17th on his own . He is currently in Kazakhstan, where he will be opening a new embassy for Norway.
Snow is not necessarily something all the immigrants who come to Norway are familiar with, and since it really started snowing in December, there has been a lot of snow coming down. The organization ChangeWeNeed took advantage of the weather, and arranged a ski weekend at Hvalstad Asylum for the underage immigrants who’re residents there.
It would give them a chance to play in the snow, and learn to ski, toboggan, play in the snow and grill hot dogs over open fire. The same things that Norwegian youngsters may experience growing up.
On Tuesday, the Norwegian royal house established their own YouTube channel, following in the footsteps of the British monarchy. The URL
The Crown Prince and Crown Princess have had a presence on social web sites, such as Twitter and Facebook a while. And even though joining YouTube is a rather new step for the family, they have long been involved in sharing videos of themselves on the royal home page, for example of Ingrid Alexandra’s birthdays. The couple also recently shared a video of the family on their Facebook page, promoting the involvement of young people in making decisions for the future.
Crown Prince Haakon is also sharing his impressions from the first days in Davos on YouTube.
And the Assisting Communications manager promises that there will not only come videos from the current history: “We will be adding more clips, among other things snippets from the history of the Royal House.”
Carl-Erik Grimstad, the royal expert that the Norwegian media like to run to for bitter quotes, comments to NRK that “this type of exploitation of social media has become a way of elongating this tradition [the royal court not answering questions]. This is good old-fashioned information, which some would call propaganda.”
Or is it merely elongating the tradition the Norwegian court has established through their website and media presence already, by stepping outside their own website and closing up on the people?
On the occasion of Princess Ingrid Alexandra’s 6th birthday, the Norwegian Court has released a series of pictures of the princess.
Ingrid Alexandra had her first big official duty last summer, when she assisted her mother in an environmental duty in front of the palace. Later, she was the co-star of King Harald in a video aimed for children, as they together opened the children’s webpages on the royal court’s home page.
In November, she assisted in another royal duty at the National Football Championships for Men, when she handed out trophies to the winning team, Aalesund.
Ingrid Alexandra is currently attending nursery school/kindergarten, and will start school officially in August, when she enters first grade. She will presumably forego the royal tradition of going to school in Oslo, given the commute, and rather follow in the footsteps of her half brother, Marius, who went to the local elementary school. (more…)
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