I had lunch yesterday with a university professor from Sweden who was visiting my workplace together with a Swedish delegation. He was not a royalist himself and might even be a republican, but I took the opportunity to ask him his opinion about the SRF. I must confess I (in a somewhat machiavellian fashion) omitted that I actually had a fair amount of knowledge about the Royal Family so that I could find out how he, as a Swede, would describe the RF to a complete stranger who he believed knew nothing about the Swedish royals. Here is what he said:
1) CP Victoria is "very competent" and "represents the country very well". She is also "very popular".
2) Carl Philip is OK and so is his bride. BTW, he had met Sofia personally before and said "she seems to be a nice person". He specifically mentioned "she was involved in a program to help children in Africa" and didn't mention anything about her controversial past. The fact that he himself was involved in development programs in Africa (Kenya) might explain why he thought so highly of Sofia, but, in any case, his reply illustrates how Project Playground was good PR for her.
3) Queen Silvia, according to him, "doesn't speak Swedish properly". He also said she goes to Brazil very often, officially "on vacation", but people actually suspect she goes there "to have plastic surgery".
4) Maddie according to him "had problems in her youth" and decided to move to NY. He then said she married "a foreigner" and moved to the US where she had a daughter. He apparently resented that Madeleine had left the country.
5) He said nothing about the King and I didn't push the subject any further.
What do you think ?