Don has left the building PBEM, thread 2

[Paddy]

This is ground control to Carth Cow 1 now entering orbit over Russia...

Did you pack extra socks?

I hear that the Ruskies make visitors walk everwhere to see the sights of their Utopia

[Johann Moritz]

Is there anything I missed?

[Paddy]

Well Bongo took his Cow for a shave after New Years...

.... ....

... and ever since then things have not been the same in our neck of the Jungle.

But that is all I can say on that...

Must not upset the neighbours, especially when they like to through things into ORBIT

[Iron Jackson]

Save is in Norway.

[bongo]

It is too cold here ( -22 this morning ) so the save has already left for spain

[Paddy]

Thanks Johann

90BC onto Iron Jackson

[Iron Jackson]

... some like it hot

but not the save

It loves cold, cold Norway.

[bongo]

To JOhann again

[Paddy]

Thanks Johann

70BC onto Iron Jackson

[Iron Jackson]

Looks like this save had an afterburner today. It´s quite hot. So we let it cool down in Norway this night.

@ Bongo:

All the best to Mette-Marit, Haakon and their little daughter (yet no name, but Haakon will proclaim the name during the meeting with the parlament this morning, I heard ?)


*IronJacksonfiresasalute*

[bongo]

50 BC to Johann.

Thanks IJ
Crown prince Haakon will announce the name to the cabinet(regierung?) first, I don't know if he's telling the media himself, or if the prime minister will get that honour.

There has been some speculation about the name, Ingeborg has been mentioned a lot. We'll see in a couple of hours

[Johann Moritz]

Sent a few minutes ago.

Monarchy and Government seem to be very related in Norway. Here the prime minister would never make public the name of the Prince's son

BTW, our Crown Prince will get married (at last!) next May. Her wife will be a journalist divorced from a civil marriage. Things are more old-fashioned here, and the conservative (or catholic) parties are sooooo upset with monarchy now

[bongo]

Norway is a monarchy, but the king has of course very little power. He is reagarded as both head of state and head of church, he leads the weekly cabinet meeting, opens the pairlament after elections(and maybe after holidays). Every new law also need the kings signature to be valid. He also does other tasks like appointing new governments after elections and recieve diplomats. In reality though, he's got no power at all. He is only a figurehead. But the idea is to have someone that can take action in times of great crisis, which has happened once or twice since we got our independence in 1905.

Right now, the king is recovering from a cancer operation so the crown prince is the ruling regent.

Your new crown princess sounds like ms conservative Our next queen was already a single mother when she met the crown prince. She's also been a notorious raver

[Paddy]

Bring on the raver girls...
Bring on the raver girls...
Bring on the raver girls...
Bring on the raver girls...
Bring on the raver girls...

oh and the save is onto Iron Jackson and

Bring on the raver girls...

[bongo]

To Johann, 30 BC

[Paddy]

Hey, where are the Raver girls ????

[Johann Moritz]

Sent to Paddy.

Bongo:
Our king does exactly the same as yours: law's signatures, etc, but it is assumed that that is only a rule, and that the king shall never refuse to sign. What I mean is that our king would never make use of his power, while he seems to do use his power sometimes in your country. Only for the Christmas Message it is visible that we have a king in Spain

You gained independence in 1905... What were you before that? I have so much ignorance about the beginning of the century...

[Paddy]

Thank you Johann,

30BC onto Iron Jackson.

We too have a Royal family. Yet they do not live here, they visit very rarely and treat us like some sort of settler pump. Add to this we have to share them with the people of the United Kingdom - Brittan. Elizabeth is the Queen of England, and the Queen of Australia. These are two seperate titles, and could be handed to two seperate people if it ever came to it. We, the people of Australia, had a referendum a few years back to see if we should become a Republic. There are many reasons why this failed, but fail it did. Thus the Royal family still have a lot of rights here on our fair isle.

We have offered to build them a fantastic palace in our NorthEastern state (which happens to be called "Queensland") Here we would hope that the Queen and her family could hold court between 10am and 5pm 6 days a week. They would also be required to hold dinner parties and a ball once a week. It would be a fantastic palace. And it would be open to the public 18 hours per day 7 days per week. We would have pony trails, Royal guards in their dashing uniforms, parades, fairy floss, all sorts of rides, merchandising to the hilt. This would just add to the economy in such a great way, as we all know they are fantastic with the tourists...

[Iron Jackson]

Thank God, we don´t have a king or queen over here in Germany. Although there are of course descendants of the old royal dynasty but they have no power at all.


BTW: Save is in Norway.

[bongo]

@Johann, if our king tried to abuse his power, we would either have a very fast transition to republic, or get another king. In the two situations I mentioned, all he did was to make a decision when those who were supposed to do it were struck by panic and unable to even pick their nose without anyone telling them. The first time was when the labour party won their first election(they were more or less communists at the time, maybe in the 1920s). The kings job after each election is to give the winner the task of forming a government, normally he takes advice from the current prime minister but this time the PM didn't know what to do so the king simply had to state the obvious and give the task of forming a new government to the labour party. The second time was at the beginning of WW2 when norway was assaulted by germany. The norwegian government were very close to surrendering when the king urged them to fight instead.

A brief history of norway:
United 865 by King Harald Haarfagre
Fell under danish rule in the 15th century,when the ruling class were wiped out by the black plague (svartedauden)
Given to sweden as bounty at the end of the napoleonic wars in 1814. A national assembly were quickly put together. They made a new constitution and declared independence . A brief war with sweden followed in which we lost our (very brief) independence
but kept our constitution.
1905 When faced with the choice of a new war with (a well prepared) norway or dissolving the union, the swedish king chose to accept norways independence.
1940-45 Occupied by germany through WW2
1970 Oil-production is starting
Present, we are obscenely rich, and infinitely greedy

Ah well, save to johann again

@Paddy :top:

[Johann Moritz]

Thank you so much for the History lesson, Bongo

Oil production... How about entering the E.U? I'm sure you are willing to share it with your European friends

When there were all those demonstrations all over the world against the Iraq war, and as our prime minister insisted on going to war (Aznar, you know) when 90% definitely rejected it, we desperately looked to the king with the hope that he would do something, but he kept quiet
I think that's the only time we were going to love the king, and he didn't take advantage of the situation

[bongo]

Dinner with my mother-in-law is over Now I have started with this weekends big task. Just bought a wireless-lan kit with router+pci-card. Gotta get it connected now, lots of fun for a techie

[Iron Jackson]

AD is reached.

10 AD ing to Norway

[bongo]

Oh no, what are we going to do now? Count upwards?? Whose idea is this anyway

To Jhann

[Paddy]

Thanks Johann

Onto Iron Jackson

[Paddy]

Thanks Johann

30AD Onto Iron Jackson



de ja vu ...

[Paddy]

I just remembered a recent funny story on the Australian / English Royal family.

It has been officially determined that the current holders of the Royal thrones are the illegitimate heirs, dating back to an error of judgement centuries ago.

And the rightful holder of these thrones is a certain Lord Hastings. Who moved from England to Australia at the age f 17. He is now in his 60's and finds the whole thing a triffle boring. Yes his family is as listed etc, he just would not want the job. He believes that Australia should be a Republic and let it get on with life.

Oh and he requests that we let him get on with life on his rather large family property.

And to add further insult to injury for those that want him to take the thrones, well he has not been up to the City (Sydney) for 17 years. He sees no reason to go to such places...

Gotta love them Royals...

[bongo]

sent the save to johann some 90 minutes ago...

[Paddy]

and onto Iron Jackson

[Iron Jackson]

Thanks Paddy. This one was better

70 AD onto Bongo