BACKGROUNDER: Web resources for a story in the news
Date: Jan. 19, 2006
By: Christopher Vaughan
Story: Rattles to celebrate royal christening
People in Australia are celebrating the christening of the future heir to the Danish monarchy. The Slip Inn, located in Sydney Australia, is where Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark met Australian Mary Donaldson during the 2000 Olympics. The couple married in 2004 and this is their first child, who will be heir to the Danish throne. The bar is holding a champagne brunch for members of the Danish community and general public in Australia. The bar has Danish flags hanging, staff are dressed in traditional Danish-themed costumes and baby rattles will be given to every person who visits the bar. (Source: The Age)
Site: The Danish Monarchy
This is the official Danish Monarchy's website regarding the Christening. This website provides a great deal of information: from the palace where the Christening will take place to information about the royal baptismal font and Christening set to official pictures of the prince and princess with their baby. There are links available on the page which leads you to detailed official biographies of the royal family, their history, palaces and collections.
Site: Club Zone
This site has information and reviews about various bars all over the world. It gives a description of the Slip Inn, along with a user-rating of the bar. It also has a few pictures of the interior of the bar. This site is interesting because it shows the kind of establishment where the heir to the Danish throne met his future wife.
Site: The Unofficial Danish Royal Family FAQ page
An interesting site that answers some commonly asked questions about Danish royalty. If you wanted to know how the line of succession works, how to address a member of the royal family or even how this family is related to other European royal families, this is a good site to visit. The site is maintained by a royal family admirer living in the Netherlands and therefore it's a good site to visit if you just want to have a quick read about the Danish royals. The site is written in a straight forward and easy to understand manner, kind of a primer on Danish royal life.
Site: Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
The Church of Denmark is Lutheran. This site, from the Royal Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, gives a comprehensive discussion of religious life in Denmark along with the history of the church. Perhaps one of the reasons that this royal baptism is so popular can be summed up in this quote from the site: “…after a fall in the 1960s and 1970s, the growing number of baptisms and other church ceremonies in the last two decades of the century suggest that the (national) church has by no means lost its place in people's consciousness.”
Site: Hello Magazine
Royals are meant to be looked at. Sometimes though, official portraits are not enough. This website has many candid photos of the Danish royal family. For example, on this particular page, there are two candid photos of the royal parents as they are leaving the chapel where the baby will be baptized. While the Australian and Danish people are popping corks and shaking rattles, we can what see that the royal couple are getting ready for the big event.