The Kingdom of the Netherlands has a new King

That is all.

I didn’t know they had a king. I thought they were some kind of anarcho-syndicist commune.

The socio-economic ramifications of this are not easily overlooked!

Well, this is the first King in 120 years. We’ve had Queens for the longest time.

I thought we were an autonomous collective.

No one cares about Kings and leaders unless they are tabloid worthy. Or have their own music video, like this possible future President of Uzbekistan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyfN8RR2hVo

He doesn’t even rate a mention of his name? Dang. Still, it’s good to be King, even if an anonymous one…

(and yes, I know his name - the whole idea is to avoid mentioning it, so you don’t need to tell me - and I’ll have my fingers in my ears yelling lalalalalaIcan’thearyoulalalalalala anyway).

I saw a fluff piece on the news yesterday about Britain’s Prince Charles attending the coronation.

It noted that following tradition, the monarch of the Netherlands was stepping down after 30 years to turn over the throne to their heir regardless of their own health. It noted that Prince Charles had attended the coronation of the previous monarch 30 years hence, and then cut to a shot of him looking like an old, much-kicked puppy.

She was Queen for 33 years, her mother for 42 (ish), and her grandmother for 58, so it’s not like there’s a set timetable for stepping-down. Kind of amazing that this is only their 7th monarch in 200 years of continuous reigns.

Besides being one of the tallest nations in the world on average, the dutch also have a very long life span compared to some other nations.

Well, to be fair a LOT of British people think the Crown should skip a generation.

[quote]
The Netherlands’ 50-year old king guest co-pilots two flights a month for KLM, the country’s flag carrier airlines. All the while, his passengers had been left in the dark. He finally divulged his secret double life to Dutch newspaper Der Telegraaf in an interview published Wednesday.

He said it’s more of a hobby than anything. “You have a plane, passengers and crew and you are responsible for them. You can’t take your problems with you off the ground,” he said. “You can completely switch off for a while and focus on something else,” he said, describing flying a jetliner in terms most guys his age reserve for a round of golf.

While KLM would be hard-pressed to say no to their monarch if he asked to fly, he’s apparently a really good pilot.[/quote]

Thank you for posting that. My wife mentioned it to me, but I didn’t have time to read up on it.