DR1 Documentary on Work Load

[Clara]

I'm making my own list of Fred's 2011 work counting the events on TRF's calendar:

January:
*Fred works 4 days (two or three are the New Year's galas)

February:
*Fred works 3 days

(Fred is regent during 8 days)

March:
*Fred works 2 days and one is the opening of the woman's curling championship  
(Fred is regent during 13 days)

April:

*Fred works 5 days (1 is for a movie premiere, 2 is an opera and the 3 days are a sports conference in London)
The baptism is also included, another day of work to add for the documentary.

May:

Fred works 5 days (2 days are a state visit to Denmark, he doesn't appear, I assume he participated)
Plus 3 day trip to Mozambique and a 3 day meeting of the IOC members in Switzerland.
*Fred works 11 days in May.

June:

Fred works 3 days plus a 5 day trip to Ukraine.
*Fred works 8 days in June.
Fred is also regent 2 days

July:

Fred works 1 day (wedding of Albert and Charlene) plus a 6 day IOC meeting in South Africa.
*Fred "works" 7 days in July.

August:

Fred works 5 days (including a two days festival) plus their 5 day summer cruise
*Fred "works" 10 days in August
Fred is regent 22 days

September
Fred works 5 days(including being at the World Road Cycling) plus a 7 day(!??) state visit with his parents to Russia plus a 4 day sports congress in China!
*Poor Fred works 16 days.
Fred is regent 2 days

October
Fred works 5 days(including a reception at the Australian Embassy   ) plus their 6 day trip to USA
*Fred works 11 days

November
Fred works 2 days plus their 7 day trip to Australia and his 4 day trip to Vietnam.
*Fred works 13 days.

December
*Fred works 1 day, and it's an IOC event.

In 2011 Fred worked(including IOC meetings, useless trips and summer cruises) 91 days and was regent for 47 days.
Source: http://www.theroyalforums...cember-2011-a-6703-4.html

[Little_star]

Well, I do not want a monarchy. I think it is important to
highlight issues that FOR ME and hopefully others are completely ridiculous. I think that Derfy, Meary and Margy for that sake, cannot symbolize anything that can do anything for me. That the DRF receive an humongous amount of money so they can live a luxurious life do not make them ideals, icons, symbols, heroes, "blue-blooded" and therefore of higher rank or anything like that to me. The royals are in my book just anachronisms and I want people to maybe reconsider their acceptance of a class society like this...

Some day (hopefully in my lifetime) we might be able to vote against the monarchy...who knows...happened in A LOT of other countries

Excellent post Mille! 

IMO royals stop becoming symbols the moment they start to receive taxpayer money which many view as their "wage". They're civil servants essentially with a massive number of perks. Frankly the least they can do is "work" for the perks they receive.

Obviously it varies from monarchy to monarchy but if I were Danish I would be up in arms at how lazy the DRF is.

[Jazzy]

Clara, his calender has been posted on DR1

http://www.dr.dk/NR/rdonl...officielle_deltagelse.pdf


JP has an article on Fred's work in relation to this docu.
An excerpt:
Through a systematic analysis of the royal calendars and a check into the Crown Prince's doings through 2010 and 2011, the detectors determine that Crown Prince Frederik worked far more than the alleged 40 days.

Working days were very different  in character from the awarding of prizes and official state visits to more enjoyable purpose as a being spectator at the football World Cup and participation in racing on the crown prince's own boat.

http://jp.dk/blitz/kongelige/article2687404.ece


My favorit comment from readers:

Sjovt som den famillie ligner en klassisk famillie på bistandsydelse. 1. Hun ryger, 2. har dårlige tænder, 3. gifter sig med en fremmedarbejder der heller der heller ikke har noget job. 4. Hendes børn og deres ægtefæller er alle på bistand 5. skilsmisser og utroskab er udbredt i familien. 6. Hendes børn får selv mange børn, der alle får svært ved at bryde den sociale arv, og derfor også skal forsørges af staten. 7. når de endelig får et job, møder de ofte ikke op på arbejde (Frederik i DIF) :-)

Funny that this family is similar to a classic family are on social welfare. First She smokes, second has bad teeth, 3rd marries she a foreign worker who does who does not have a job. 4th Her children and their spouses are all on welfare, divorces and adultery is widespread in the family.  6th Her children themselves get many children who will all find it hard to break the intergenerational transmission of poverty and should therefore be maintained by the state. 7th when they finally get a job, they  do not often show up for work (Frederik in DIF) :-)

[thrilla]

I really don't understand this issue. They're royals and per definition they don't "work" IMO. IMO their "work" is to be a uniting non-political symbol that the people can unite under when the need arises. Sure, Felipe and Leti or Prince Charles may do more assignments every year but I wonder if they, when they become regents, will be more of a uniting symbol for their people. I guess time will tell.

Take our Swedish king as an example. Everybody knows that he's a drinker and a womanizer and that he's really unintelligent (perhaps a bit similar to Fred?). And god knows that he hasn't taken his job as serious as say Queen Elizabeth. But when the tsunami in Thailand changed the lives of many Swedish families we could still unite under our king.

So to conclude, IMO it doesn't matter how many assignements the royals have every year, they are still grossly overpaid no matter how you see it. But I think that's a price you have to pay to have a monarchy. And I think the most important job for the royals is to be out there and be seen and keep the symbol alive.

Perhaps it's actually easier for someone paying Fred's salary to see what the issue is. Even if you believe that monarchies are an important symbol (I don't and I can't believe that in our region where everywhere else in society, people are very much demanding that all are treated equally and focus on democracy, we still have 3 out of 5 Nordic countries clinging to as ridiculous and non-democratic a "symbol" as the monarchy), the symbol itself does not need to cost 350 mil Danish kroner per year! A lot less would do it. And there is no need for these symbols to be above the law, to not pay tax and to enjoy any of the other perks that the rest of us "equals" have to live without.

I think Fred will prove to be a CG kind of monarch when he gets older. He's already shaping up to be a terrible king  So in the meantime, he can do all us all a favor and contribute a little more. I'm sure that the Danish Athletic Association would appreciate him showing up for a few more meetings than the 19 out of 21 that he's skipped so far! 

[Cess]

I really don't understand this issue. They're royals and per definition they don't "work" IMO. IMO their "work" is to be a uniting non-political symbol that the people can unite under when the need arises. Sure, Felipe and Leti or Prince Charles may do more assignments every year but I wonder if they, when they become regents, will be more of a uniting symbol for their people. I guess time will tell.

Take our Swedish king as an example. Everybody knows that he's a drinker and a womanizer and that he's really unintelligent (perhaps a bit similar to Fred?). And god knows that he hasn't taken his job as serious as say Queen Elizabeth. But when the tsunami in Thailand changed the lives of many Swedish families we could still unite under our king.

So to conclude, IMO it doesn't matter how many assignements the royals have every year, they are still grossly overpaid no matter how you see it. But I think that's a price you have to pay to have a monarchy. And I think the most important job for the royals is to be out there and be seen and keep the symbol alive.

Perhaps it's actually easier for someone paying Fred's salary to see what the issue is. Even if you believe that monarchies are an important symbol (I don't and I can't believe that in our region where everywhere else in society, people are very much demanding that all are treated equally and focus on democracy, we still have 3 out of 5 Nordic countries clinging to as ridiculous and non-democratic a "symbol" as the monarchy), the symbol itself does not need to cost 350 mil Danish kroner per year! A lot less would do it. And there is no need for these symbols to be above the law, to not pay tax and to enjoy any of the other perks that the rest of us "equals" have to live without.

I think Fred will prove to be a CG kind of monarch when he gets older. He's already shaping up to be a terrible king  So in the meantime, he can do all us all a favor and contribute a little more. I'm sure that the Danish Athletic Association would appreciate him showing up for a few more meetings than the 19 out of 21 that he's skipped so far! 

But I do pay for the Swedish Royal Family where not everybody is working their asses off, so to speak. And I am still a hardcore monarchist. Even though our royals are living a luxury life that we are paying for the monarchy is about half the price compared to a republic (I compare the numbers for Sweden’s monarchy with Finland’s republic). Furthermore, I don’t think it’s anti-democratic to have a king when the king does not have any power. Instead, I think it’s good that our PM does not have to bother with all the silly ribbon-cutting that the royal family has to deal with. I have just watched “the West Wing” and it’s amazing how many stupid assignments the President of the USA has to deal with when he could actually run the country instead and leave that to someone else. And of course you could elect that “someone else” but every country that does elect a powerless president (like Germany) ends up with a totally anonymous figure that no one cares about. Why not have a proper Royal Family instead and so the country can gain some income from gossip magazines instead?

I agree with you that the royals should be equal in front of the law. In Sweden the royals do pay taxes but cannot in principle be sentenced for any crimes committed. That does not feel right IMO.

Well, that was much ado about the monarchy as such. My point was that CG is not a terrible king (even though he has his evident flaws) because he was there when he was supposed to be there and I think Fred has good potential to be there if something would happen in Denmark when he is king as well. And I really don’t think that he would be a better king if he went to more conferences or cut more ribbons or smashed more bottles against ships or cuddled with more babies.

And one more thing! I think several of our regents today was very questioned when they became regents. The Swedish republican movement were certain that the Swedish monarchy would die a couple of years after CG took the throne and IMRIC QMII was very questioned as well.

[Miss Waynfleet]

I like Georg Friedrich, but I´m more comfortable with a President. I remember very good when the media was so much in favour of Gauck instead of Wulff and ignored Joachimsen. That was a better drama than if it´s sexist that mothers give their children to a Crown Princess. 
In the end the pale Wulff won, but IMO he did a good job till this scandal in December. And if there is enough pressure we can kick him out of the job.
Germany had good and charismatic Presidents like Johannes Rau, Weizsäcker or Herzog.
GF would be a good King, but what about the next one, totally incompetent like Fred?

[Maria]

So to conclude, IMO it doesn't matter how many assignements the royals have every year, they are still grossly overpaid no matter how you see it. But I think that's a price you have to pay to have a monarchy. And I think the most important job for the royals is to be out there and be seen and keep the symbol alive.

The problem would be then, that Fred's not really out there very much and he's not really seen doing much to keep the symbolism of the future king alive. Fred is adored by the Danes for simply being Fred, but at the same time there are more and more questions about his workethics and way of handling his position - one would have to be a die-hard monarchist with blinkers on to say that he's on his way to becoming a good king. So why keep him?

Furthermore - in a time where our society is changing rapidly with more and more demands for the average Dane it's quite simply an insult to have this family of figureheads who gets special treatment to the extreme while Danes are told to work more, pay more, expect less - it's quite simply offensive. He and Mary are more Louis XV and Marie Antoniette than they are Frederik and Indrid.

Politiken is on it now: Frederik works a 100 days less a year than the average Dane: http://politiken.dk/indla...rre-end-danske-arbejdere/

EB (of course): Fred has started 2012 as busy as a workerbee: http://ekstrabladet.dk/fl...gelige/article1704438.ece

[marla hooch]

One of the sugarboarders chimed in during the conversation about this doc and suggested that Yrma having a birthday party and inviting all the "movers and shakers" in Denmark is just like work, because she facilitates meetings between important people in a social setting, where many important deals and connections are made.  That COM freak must be a member here as well or at least reads the posts as a guest because they also suggested that one of the things Yrma is criticized for the most here - shopping - is also part of her job because it promotes Danish industry and economy and products.  Really?!  I didn't know Prada was a Danish company.

[Maria]

And now brownnosing Berlingske is defending Freddles: he does work more than Koplev said he does! (let's not talk about him working a 100 days less than the average Dane then..): http://www.b.dk/nationalt...eget-arbejder-kronprinsen

[Diogenes]

which many view as their "wage".

... and which they view as their "entitlement" and THAT is where the problem is.  In Denmark at least, the royal direct lineage is a bunch of over entitled, under intelligenced snobs who take their position and their income for granted.  I don't denigrate monarchies where those involved behave like people who could hold down a job and raise a family if they weren't doing what they are.  I do object strongly to those where the holders take what they have for granted and look absolutely hopeless at doing their job let alone anything else.

OK, rant over ... 

[isis]

If Fred is 'working' as a Regent, what exactly does he/Joachim has to do? I mean is it a work all day:signing papers, meeting people, talking to diplomats....or what? Is it known in Denmark or in the Scandinavian countries what a regent is doing?  

[katerzzz]

If Fred is 'working' as a Regent, what exactly does he/Joachim has to do? I mean is it a work all day:signing papers, meeting people, talking to diplomats....or what? Is it known in Denmark or in the Scandinavian countries what a regent is doing?  

Well, a regent doesn't have an all-day job per se, a regent is there in case something catastrophic happens whilst the reigning monarch is otherwise unavailable.

So, in Denmark, when Marge is off on holiday, Fred doesn't do much more than usual, but say, for example, if World War 3 started and Marge wasn't there to officially declare war, then Fred/Jokke would do it 

[winx]

Royals are just the finest parasites in society!!   

[Snow Queen]

Royals are just the finest parasites in society!!   

ITA 

They are fabulous for dishing but other than that I can't see what purpose they serve.

[Laprincess]

I'm making my own list of Fred's 2011 work counting the events on TRF's calendar:

In 2011 Fred worked(including IOC meetings, useless trips and summer cruises) 91 days and was regent for 47 days.
Source: http://www.theroyalforums...cember-2011-a-6703-4.html

Thanks for the summary, Clara.  

So out of the 91 days Fred "worked", 18 days (about 20%) were related to sports (incl. one day at an NFL game in the US). 15 days (over 16%) were fluffs (New Year gala, Christianing, movie premier, opera, Monaco royal wedding, festivals, summer cruise, receiving gifts at the Aussie embassy for their twins), 29 days (32%) were bloated foreign trips (Ukraine, Russia, USA, Australia, Vietnam) where he met few heads of state or high ranking officials (this calls into the question: If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it...).

That's 62 days, or over 68% of his "work".