Three months ago, prince Laurent of Belgium had the dead body of his favourite dog frozen. The prince was upset by the death of the Berner Senner and wanted to wait until an appropriate time, to say goodbye to the dog.
click on image to see photo at nieuwslog.nl
The Swiss dog was his favourite for seven years, and died of cancer. After his death the prince took the body to the veterinary medicine faculty of the university of Gent. At the university they froze the body, until the prince found the time ripe to say goodbye to his dog. On thursday, a few days before all saints, the prince thought that the time was ripe, the prince told public channel VRT through the telephone.
According to professor Chiers, of the university of Gent, several limbs of the dog were deformed because the body was frozen on the flat floor. When the prince announced that he wanted to collect the dog, the staff had to hurry to dry the hairs and bend the body in the original shape. When the prince arrived, the staff had to leave as the prince was quite emotional and wanted to be left alone with his dog.
In a reaction on the VRT the prince said that there is too little attention for the role that pets play in our daily lives. ‘People are very attached to their pets, when they die it hurts’, says Laurent. ‘All Saints is a day to pay attention to that’.
Marengo Belgian Royals Animals, Pets, Prince Laurent
Last night Queen Beatrix attended the opening of the annual Holland Dance festival at the Lucent Dance Theater in The Hague. The queen was accompanied by the prince of Orange, princess Máxima, prince Constantijn and Princess Laurentien. Princess Máxima wore the grey Natan dress that she first wore during Prinsjesdag in 2004 while princess Laurentien looked smashing in a green creation.
Click on image to see photo at PPE
Click on image to see photo at PPE
It is widely known that queen Beatrix is fond of any form of dance, as is her sister Margriet. The younger generation as also hooked, the daughters of the crown prince attend ballet classes and recently princess Máxima took her daughters to a (private) rehearsal of the National ballet in Amsterdam.
During the festival, the 50th annversairy of the Holland Dans Theater will be celebrated. During this 12th edition of the dance festival over 70 performances and 100 workshops will be given. The festival will end on November 15th with a parade of 1200 amateur dancers.
More information about the festival can be found here.
Marengo Dutch Royals Prince Constantijn, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Laurentien, Princess Máxima, Queen Beatrix, Royal Ballet
click on image to see photo at hln.be
As has been reported in the Flemish press, queen Fabiola left Castle Stuyvenberg and stayed at Villa Astrida in Spain. According to Spanish website ideal.es the Queen arrived in Motrtil on October 15th and left for Belgium two days ago. Last week the palace announced that queen Fabiola would not have any official duties in the near future as she is recoverning from a pneunomia.
Villa Astrida was bought by the queen and her late husband, king Baudouin, in the sixties. The villa is located in Motril, near Granada. Villa Astrida is named after king Baudouin’s mother, queen Astrid. In 1993 king Baudouin died in the villa from a heart attack.
To learn more about Queen Fabiola’s current activities, visit this thread.
Marengo Belgian Royals Health, Queen Fabiola, Spain
Click on image to see photo at refdag.nl
A job as lackey for queen Beatrix at the palace seems very popular. Since the ’service of the royal house’ placed a job advertisement on the internet last week, the service has been flooded with applications.
‘We often place advertisements on the internet’, says spokesperson Weijermans in the Algemeen Dagblad, ‘but this time we are getting an enormous amount of reactions’. The adversisement says that women can also apply for the job. According to Weijermans it is a misunderstanding that only men can be lackey’s, though at the moment no women are employed in this function.
Candidates can reply until November 1st. Among other things, they need to be fluent in English and have knowledge about polishing silverware. The exact requirements can be read in Dutch here. The job takes 36 hours a week, for which you will be payed 2338,64 euros a month.
Marengo Dutch Royals Queen Beatrix, Royal Household, Royal Staff
Click on image to see photo at Seeger
On tuesday, the Duchess of Montpensier has appeared in public again for the first time after she fell ill this spring. The duchess, who was dressed in a black dress with a two string pearl necklace, attended the gala Andre-Charles Boule Exhibition ” A new style for Europe” at the old Opera in Frankfurt (Germany). She was accompanied by one of her sons, the duke of Vendôme. His wife stayed home, as she is in an advanced state of her pregnancy.
The duchess is the ex wife of the count of Paris, claimant to the French throne. She is the daughter of duke Albrecht of Württemberg and Archduchess Rosa of Austria-Tuscany. In 1957 she married prince Henri of Orleans, a marriage that ended in a divorce in 1984. The duchess fell ill on May 1st, on the eve of her sons
wedding to Philomena de Tornos y Steinhart. Due to her illness the duchess was unable to attend the wedding ceremony.
Marengo French Royals Duchess of Montpensier, Exhibition, Germany, Health, Prince Jean of France
Click on image to see hpoto at haagsallerlei.nl
Princesses Máxima and Laurentien of The Netherlands had several public engagements during the last two days. On Tuesday night princess Máxima visited the new Culturalis Theater in the Schilderswijk in The Hague.
The Culturalis is an amateur theater for young people. The princess arrived at the theater on the Hobbema street at 8PM and left two hours later. She opened the theater by hitting on an Indonesian gong. For the occassion the princess wore a pink dress from Natan that she recently also wore during her visit to New York.
Yesterday princess Máxima visited two projects of the Orange Fund. She visited the foundation Ster and the foundation Two Get There. both of them are active to help vulnerabe children in The Netherlands. Ster organises holidays for insecure children from 8 to 13. Two Get There stimulatues langiage development of children. Both foundations are supported by the Orange Fund, of which princess Máxima is the patron.
Click on image to see photo at PPE
While Máxima visited these projects, princess Laurentien was in Rotterdam to launch her childrens book ‘Mr Finney en de wereld op zijn kop‘ (Mr. Finney and the world upside down). The book has been illustrated by Sieb Posthuma and together they presented the book to the press. The princess was accompanied by her husband, prince Constantijn. Princess Irene of The Netherlands, sister of queen Beatrix, also attended the presentation.
More about the book at: www.mrfinney.nl
Marengo Dutch Royals Prince Constantijn, Princess Irene of the Netherlands, Princess Laurentien, Princess Máxima, The Orange Fund
Yesterday Queen Paola of the Belgians took four of her grand children to the circus Bouglione (near the Anatomium) in Brussels to celebrate the 50th anniversary of “L’Oeuvre des Berceaux Princesse Paola / Het Werk Der Wiegjes Prinses Paola” .
Click on image to see photo at Zimbio
The queen, accompanied by her daughter princess Astrid and her daughter-in-law princess Claire took four of her grand children along: princess Laeticia Marie (daughter of princess Astrid) and princess Louise, prince Aymeric and prince Nicholas (children of prince Laurent and princess Claire. Apart from the royals many other attended the special show,. For the event 1000 children from underpriviledged families were invited.
L’Oeuvre des Berceaux Princesse Paola (the work of the cradles of princess Paola) was founded in 1876. The original name of the charity was ‘the foundation of the blacks’. In order to raise money and save the nursery, a group of well-off gentlemen decided to create ‘African Academy’; they disguised themselves as black people to avoid recognition in restaurants they frequented as clients. They blackened their faces and put on costumes of white top hat, a black coat and bright-coloured baggy trousers. The ‘Academy’ was very successful and raised enough money to save the nursery. Over the years, raising money for charity in this way has become one of the finest (and funniest) folklore traditions of Brussels.
Click on image to see photo at gva.be
In 1959, shortly after her marriage, Princess Paola accepted the post of Honorary President of the “African Academy”, which was re-named “L’Oeuvre des Berceaux Princesse Paola”. The foundation helps children from underprivileged environment; the help manifests itself in covering medical expenses, acquiring necessary food, clothing, school supplies, etc.
A gallery of pictures is available at the website of the Gazet van Antwerpen, click here. A thread about the current events of the Belgian royal family an be found here.
Marengo Belgian Royals Circus, Princess Astrid of Belgium, Princess Claire, Queen Paola
On Monday, Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands attended a meeting of the ‘club of Rome’ in Amsterdam. Former president of the USSR, Michael Gorbatsjov, also attended the meeting, as he is a honorairy member of the club.
Click on image to see picture at PPE
The club of Rome is an association that was founded in the late 60-ties by European scientists who were worried about the state of the world. During the Global Assembly, a two day conference of the club that was held in the music building near the IJ river (Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ) was the last in a series of seven meetings that had to prepare the climate summit in Copenhagen, later this year. The theme of the conference was climate, energy and economic recuperation.
After the conference the queen took her time to talk with former president Gorbatsjov, as can be seen in this clip from the local television station AT5. Apart from the scientists and politicians, the conference was also attended by prince Carlos of Bourbon-Parma, a nephew of Queen Beatrix. The prince recently announced his engagement to Annemarie Gualthérie van Weezel.
Click here to go to the website of the club of Rome. And click here for the current events thread of Queen Beatrix.
Marengo Dutch Royals, Italian Royals Bourbon-Parma, Environment, Mikhail Gorbachev, Prince Carlos, Queen Beatrix, USSR
The image of the much troubled building project of the holiday house of the prince of Orange and his wife in Mozambique will be dealt with by professionals. In The Netherlands there has been a lot of commotion about the project on the Machangulo peninsula in Mozambique. There were various claims of corruption, embazzlement, intimidation and violance against locals which already caused the prince to start a foundation that deals with the project.
Click on image to see picture at www.eo.nl
After the criticism of the last weeks the project it has been decided that apart from the Government Information Service (RVD), three other spokesmen will be involved with the information about the project from now on. As newspaper ‘Telegraaf‘ reports, the communications advisor Frans van der Grint of the renowed PR agency Hill & Knowlton, has been appointed as spokesman for the Machangulo Trust Office. The Trust office was created this summer to represent the business interests of the Prince in the Machangulo project. “Given the great interest and the many questions from the media, the Machangulo Trust Office thought it was wise to appoint a new communications adviser” commented Van der Grint.
Apart from the foundation, the building project also hired a PR agent for the project in Mozambique. They are busy in hiring another one in The Netherlands too. The Dutch PR agent will be dealing with the Dutch press. The RVD emphasizes that they will be the only ones talking on behalf of the prince of Orange and his wife.
In the mean time, political magazine HP/De Tijd immidiately criticized the choice for the PR firm Hill & Knowlton. In an article in their online edition they list some remarkable earlier assignments of the firm. In 1954 they placed an advertisement in 400 US newspapers, claiming that smoking is not lethal. The article also lists other examples.
The discussion about the holiday house of the prince and princess has been dragging on since July 2008. The public debate in The Netherlands has turned against the project and one negative article after another appears in the Dutch press. It remains to be seen if these spokesmen can change the present mood among the public and the press.
More about the Machangulo project in this thread at the Dutch forum at TRF.
Marengo Dutch Royals Mozambique, Prince of Orange, Prince Willem-Alexander, Princess Máxima, Residences
Click on image to see photo at ANP
Prince Albert II of Monaco was present at the Golden Foot Award yesterday. Here he presented the Brazilian soccer player Ronaldo de Assís Moreira, better known as Ronaldinho, with the Golden Foot 2009. The award honours a soccer player for his entire carreer, the player has to be above 29 years old. The player of AC Milan won with 43.755 votes. Second came Real madrid star Rául and the third place went to Thierry Henri.
With the award, Ronaldinho follows into the steps of his countryman Roberto Carlos, who won the award last year. Soccer players from the past, Zibi Boniek, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Oleg Blochin and Rene Higuita were also honoured with a golden foot yesterday. The print of the foot of the soccerplayers (in gold) will be placed at the Champions Promenade near Grimaldi Forum of Monte Carlo.
Marengo Monaco Royals Awards, Prince Albert II, Soccer, Sport
