Yes Greg

This is indeed an abnoxious comment on life in the 19th century as we know it.

And it gets worse you know.

Some wag named "Apple man" clearly from Tasmania and known to the said Mary, has taken it upon himself to out her and poke fun at that State.

Apple man's post (http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/archives/2005/10/placenta_of_att.html#comments) is so abhorent that I feel I should repeat it in full:

"Look I told Mary I'd stand up for her, and I did in more ways than one.

Incest is the write of every Tasmanian.

And let me tell u sunny - bad words about our Mary are chucking on all Tasmanians and our Governor - God Bless Him.

Now you one-headed Mainlanders think your pretty bloody gud don't ya. Well we Taswegians are twice as good in the head department. And we fort for this country which is more than I can say....where am I?

Our Mary is going to be Queen of a Very Important Yerapean country - so your all gellous.

There I ced it - where were we Rover?"

Disgusting

Yes. This 'our Princess Mary' and, today, 'our bonny prince'has reached the absurd. A Danish Crown Princess is not 'ours' at all. She is now a Dane, citizen of a country previously rarely mentioned in Australia. What's the betting that the growing up prince will be invited to spend some time in Australia at our expense because he is half-Australian? We are still a bunch of forelock tuggers, really.

No point commenting - aussie bob said it all pretty well:

"Mary and Whateverhisnameis aren't even OUR (Pommy) royals: they're Danish fer Chrissake, the tinpot descendants of a patricidal, minor Scandanavian war clan, done up to look like a wet dream from The Brothers Grimm.

When babies all over the world are dying from preventable diseases in the first few weeks of life, when wars are being waged against the children of the Middle East, we wet our pants over something that could have come from a Nelson Eddie and Jeanette McDonald movie. The thought of Australia swooning over a flaccid, pink skinned scion of second rate trash royalty because its mother's from Tassie and met her dopey, crybaby Prince Charming in a Sydney bar is too awful to contemplate. Yet contemplate it we must, for it's really happening"

Such spite, tch tch.

Maybe the coverage of Mary's baby and the public's appetite for it riles republicans because it shows that Aussies don't actually mind royalty.

Of course, many don't really like the ones we've been lumped with and who can blame them, but still the way we have latched onto the Danish royals shows we still beleive in fairy tales. Not exactly a bad thing.

Any one who has a daughter treats her like a princess and wants her to be the best person she can be in our meritocracy, as Greg puts it. But i wouldn't mind if my daughter married a prince who loved her and became a princess.

Surely there are better things to be bitter about than a happily married couple celebrating the birth of their child.

t.u.s

It's so rediculous, isn't it? Over 54 000 people have tragically died in Pakistan, but the Australian media decides Fred and Mary having a baby is more deserving of the front page.

SHOCK BIRTH: HUSBAND AND WIFE HAVE CHILD!

The Australian tabloid media just want a royal family to write crass stories on. Shane Warne--naughty; Princess Mary--lovely.

We don't have any royalty here in Oz, so why not leech off another country?

The executives at Packer's magazine holdings are rubbing their hands together as we speak.

I always did like those Jeanette McDonald / Nelson Eddy movies.

Greg is right when he says that this is a rare good news story - people are so ready for something other than lying politicians and the body count from the latest disaster.

And it's very Australian because it's a celebration of "niceness". Don't they appear to be very nice people ? Why should we see so much of Paris Hilton et al when we can look at Frederick and Mary? A Nobel Prize is a very fine thing, but compared to a baby ? No one has an instinctive response to a Nobel Prize (well, maybe to the million $$).