Getting in some early Tuesday morning quality babysitting with Estelle, the new Swedish Crown Princess, as SVT Play presented the Royal Christening -det kungliga dopet- LIVE from the Royal Chapel

SVT video: Archbishop Anders Wejryd christens Crown Princess Estelle as her grandfather, King Carl XVI Gustaf, mother, Crown Princess Victoria, father, Prince Daniel, and grandmother, Queen Silvia, plus Daniel's parents, beam with pride. Amazingly, Estelle was quiet until that moment. May 22, 2012.

Rather than catch-up on some TV shows I've taped the past week -The Killing, Mad Men, et al- I was diligent and did my Swedish homework early Monday night and watched SVT's information-packed one-hour show with host Ebba Von Sydow on the Royal Christening -det kungliga dopet- in Stockholm at the Royal Palace's Royal Chapel, Slottskrykan.

http://www.kungahuset.se/kungligaslotten/slottskyrkan.4.30963a1811be3fda3ab80007080.html

http://svtplay.se/v/2803597/det_kungliga_dopet/infor_det_kungliga_dopet?cb,a1364145,1,f,-1/pb,a1364142,1,f,-1/pl,v,,2803037/sb,p179267,1,f,-1

Which is why I'm so tired typing this, since the pre-game baby/fashion/royals watching analysis started promptly at 4:45 am Miami time, six hours behind Stockholm

And for those of you with a good memory, if the music you hear at the beginning of the info program sounds familiar to you, well, it should.

It's the same music that SVT used so well in their really beautiful and graphics-intensive on-air promos for the Royal Wedding -det kungliga bröllopet- in June of 2010, which I actually saved  because of how magical they were.

Like something straight out of a classic Disney animated film -but modern.

And seriously, princess or no princess, that is one quiet and contented baby, as she was quiet until almost the very end of the ceremony, even with a singer, a harp and a flute only a couple of feet away from her.

I'll be posting some screen-grabs on the blog later in the day, as the post-christening show is still on at 8 a.m. Miami time, and I've heard about enough already about the fashions, the hats, and the etiquette, et al.

As usual, younger telegenic sister Princess Madeleine looked stunning + gorgeous + je ne sais crois!

I'll have the video of her, later, too.

There's a new princess in the world and Sweden has her! (Det finns en ny prinsessa i världen och Sverige har henne!) Prince Daniel declares "Mina känslor är all over the place."

Kungabebisen

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/article14421584.ab

There's a new princess in the world and Sweden has her! Det finns en ny prinsessa i världen och Sverige har henne!

Prince Daniel declares "Mina känslor är all over the place." (My feelings are all over the place.)

For a while at least, it looks like the Swedish royal family will have some happy news to celebrate and most Swedes will have the common sense and proper perspective to cut them some slack for a bit, instead of continuing the personal criticism of the King and Queen regarding their so-called "secrets" -that were NOT really quite so secret after all it would seem- that have come out over the past few years.


As I've stated here previously, Crown Princess Victoria's positive and warm personality and earnest thoughtfulness has helped keep her personally popular among the populace even while her parents have suffered the slings and arrows that many felt were overdue.


Already, hours later, there are stories appearing in the mass circulation newspapers with various "experts" positing that the birth of Victoria and Daniel's daughter will begin the permanent shift away from her parents and usher in a new era towards what she (and her new family) will do in the future, logic that is very hard to argue with, given how unpopular her parents are with some people.


Dagens Nyheter, http://www.dn.se/, had such a story on Thursday titled Focus shifts from challenged king to Victoria, with various media editorial types from different media groups weighing-in on how they thought they'd cover things in the near-future and long-term.


Fokus flyttas från en ifrågasatt kung
Allt ljus på Victoria och nyfödda prinsessan. Hovexperten Sten Hedman tror på en ny era, som kommer att vara väldigt lönsam för medierna.
http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/intresset-flyttas-fran-ifragasatt-kung-till-victoria


Naturally, once everyone got over the initial news, the next question was, so what's her name?
There's the mystery!


We'll all be finding out on Friday morning around 11:30 a.m. Stockholm time, and as I mentioned in an email to someone Thursday night, also named Jennifer, like one of my sisters and my niece, I asked, "So why not name den nya prinsessan "Jennifer" and then Sverige can really celebrate?"


I haven't heard back from her, but popular Stureplan.se blogger/model and longtime HBB favorite Tess Montgomery was already noodling on the name game from her perch in London by the time I came home Thursday:
http://stureplan.se/bloggar/tess/2012/02/23/una-principessa


The DN also has an angle on that naming question, too, with the Conventional Wisdom p.o.v. being Sylvia, like the Queen, the Crown Princess' mother, with some thought towards Astrid, which I like.


Names it WON'T be, based on my own educated hunch, include Chelsea, Hillary, Ashley, Jessica, Shania, Demi, Taylor, Reese, Winona, Juliet, Rachel, Giselle, Alyona, Lexie, Hayden, Angelina, Dakota or Brooklyn.
Or Lisbeth!


Malin or Marin or Marina would be good choices, and some of you out there in the blogosphere far from Miami know why I've always loved Kirsten.
But that would be too much to hope for.


Aftonbladet will be streaming the press conference LIVE at their website, so check it out if you can:
http://www.aftonbladet.se/

One year after the Royal Wedding, Crown Princess Victoria shows her resolve even while her parents' popularity -and the monarchy's- have tumbled

Aftonbladet video: Highlights from the wedding at Storkyrkan and afterwards.

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/inrikes/article13171220.ab

06:33

If you watched the kungliga bröllopet -like me- you'll recognize the song performed above as the secret song commissioned by Daniel for the wedding that was kept under tight wraps until that very moment.

Here's the complete video of that singular performance, the cherry-on-top even before they left the church and took their stroll around the city by carriage and boat before returning to say "Tack."

SVT video: Agnes Carlsson & Björn Skifs - When You Tell the World You're Mine - Storkyrkan, Stockholm, June 19, 2010.

http://youtu.be/U2Qvh_FonSM

Aftonbladet video: Highlights from their first year of marriage

http://www.aftonbladet.se/webbtv/nyheter/inrikes/article13165551.ab

In the past year, even as Victoria's personal popular has increased, her parents' popularity and that of the Swedish monarchy in general have taken big hits from both republicans and an anti-monarchy media that sees the Swedish monarchy as... in short, an archaic construct in a modern era.
These groups see her parents as people whose ethics, trustworthiness, and general willingness to be straightforward about facts, to be MUCH LESS than they ought to be given their position in the country.
Especially in light of some facts that may prove more personally troubling than anyone can presently guess.

In May, in the U.S., the AP finally reported that Victoria's German-born mother, Queen Silvia, wants the longstanding questions surrounding her father's personal and professional activities and behavior in Germany and Brazil during the war to be re-examined.
This is usually referred to somewhat euphemistically in the news media as his "alleged Nazi ties." (Her mother was Brazilian.)

In the view of many of my well-informed friends in Sweden and other parts of Scandinavia, that moral cloud seems likely to get only more complicated, and some sensibilities may well be rubbed raw by the time the results are finally announced in the Fall.
(Though you're entitled to wonder where all this moral outrage is coming from now in a country that was officially neutral during the war.)

As to Victoria's father, King Carl XVI Gustaf, well, his personal behavior was the subject of an unflattering AP article in early June months after last year's publication of a not-entirely-believable book alleging many unsavory things.
That AP story made most major American newspapers and the cumulative weight of all of this has caused many people in Sweden to re-evaluate their personal feelings of respect for the king, even as his public 'explanation' -which I have watched a few times- only seemed to make things worse in the view of yours truly.

I suggest you read the AP story while you can before before they wipe this WaPo link clear.

Associated Press
Swedish monarchy under siege as king defends himself in strip club scandal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/swedish-monarchy-under-siege-as-king-defends-himself-in-strip-club-scandal/2011/06/06/AGra25JH_story.html


New York Times
Some Doubt if Any King Is Still Fit for Sweden
By John Tagliabue
August 25, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/world/europe/25sweden.html



TheLocal.se
From wedding bliss to royal crisis: the state of Sweden's monarchy
By Clara Guibourg
Published: 17 Jun 11 09:41 CET
http://www.thelocal.se/34412/20110617/

35 years ago today, THE definitive visual look of ABBA's Dancing Queen

2Shaymcn YouTube Channel: ABBA - Dancing Queen (HQ) - LIVE at the Royal Swedish Opera, Stockholm, June 18, 1976. http://youtu.be/qk_Vu6AcbWg

Above, in my humble opinion, the single best version of this song ever recorded on film.

Thirty-five ago today, one of the most popular songs of the late 20th-Century got the definitive visual look it needed to go supernova, and there it stays, frozen in our collective memories.

Well, at least among those of us with a yen for genius lyrics and power-pop harmonies.

The day before the 1976 Royal Wedding in Stockholm of King Carl XVI Gustaf and his fiancee, commoner Silvia Sommerlath, the present Queen Silvia, during a variety program celebrating the nuptials, ABBA performed a never-to-be forgotten costumed version of Dancing Queen at the Royal Swedish Opera for them and their invited guests.

As you watch the video, you can see the almost bewildered look of many of the officials and other musicians seated behind them on the stage, who, the story goes, because of their unfamiliarity with the song, had no genuine idea whether or not the song was supposed to be about the future queen -or not.

And yes, it does remind all of us again of the group's marketing genius, since two years prior, at the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton that made them famous, they wore early 19th-Century costumes when they performed Waterloo, which earned them first place.

ABBAVevo: ABBA -Dancing Queen (1976)

http://youtu.be/xFrGuyw1V8s

As of today this video has received 9,355,415 views.

The current population estimate of Sweden by the CIA is 9,088,728.

Benny sliding his fingers across the piano keys at the beginning -so very, very simple and yet so genius!

Fox-TV's multi-national hit Glee featured a performance of Dancing Queen in their May 10th episode titled Prom Queen, with Amber Riley and Naya Rivera doing the duet.

You can watch the entire episode on Fox's website until this coming Thursday at

http://www.fox.com/glee/full-episodes/937193545001/prom-queen

The song begins at 0:40:46 and goes to 0:42:39.

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Swedish Royal Court website: http://www.kungahuset.se/

Official Glee website: http://www.fox.com/glee/