Clearly, I must assert my claim to the throne


I stumbled across this old photo on the web, and at first I wondered why a random website would have a photo of my great-grandfather…and what’s with the uniform? He was a dairy farmer!

Then I discovered that it was actually King Haakon VII of Norway.

H.M. King Haakon of Norway’, 1942. From ‘Calling All Nations’, by T. O. Beachcroft. [The British Broadcasting Corporation, Wembley, The Sun Engraving Co., Ltd., London and Watford, 1942]. Artist Unknown. (Photo by Print Collector/Getty Images)

I think the passing resemblance is sufficient cause to claim a link. More evidence: Norway already has a king, King Harald V, and he doesn’t look much like his grandfather. I, too, don’t look much like my great-grandfather, providing further proof. I guess I’ll be nice and not usurp the throne, as he seems to be doing a fine job, but you know, if ever you’re looking for another heir, Norway, I’ll be available.

Comments

  1. PaulBC says

    What’s to explain? We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds. We shall fight on our dairy farms.

    I’m not sure what Google Lens is. Is it the new form of image search? Anyway, it matches that photo to nearly anyone with a mustache and a military cap. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_Brain

  2. Rich Woods says

    PZ, you’d find Norway too undemocratic. You need to be related to Dutch royalty, where the primary privilege of the monarch appears to be not getting your bike nicked.

  3. Rich Woods says

    PZ, you’d find Norway too undemocratic. You need to be related to Dutch royalty, where the primary privilege of the monarch appears to be not getting your bike nicked.

  4. Artor says

    The flag of Norway is pretty plain. It would definitely be improved by the inclusion of some spiders or cephalopods.

  5. PaulBC says

    Reginald Selkirk@9 Off topic (if there is one here) but my favorite nutty Obama theory is not that he was born in Kenya, which is nutty enough, but that his real father was Muhammad Subuh Sumohadiwidjojo, “an Indonesian who founded the movement known as Subud” according to Wikipedia. This claim is usually supported with a blurry B/W photograph showing Sumohadiwidjojo’s face with Obama’s. I won’t dignify these nuts with a link, but you can search if you want. When I first saw this, I suppose I was naive enough to be shocked. Compared to QAnon, I suppose it’s nothing special as a conspiracy theory.

  6. PaulBC says

    Reginald Selkirk@9 Bateman’s LinkedIn page is fairly normal with the dorky description: “Tech entrepreneur with a sudden interest in automating the manufacturing of apartments”. It doesn’t mention the part where a tapeworm made a home in his brain and died there. Also, I’m connected as “2nd”. I wonder who I know who knows him.

  7. Reginald Selkirk says

    Have King Haakon and Baron Harkonnen ever been seen in the same room together?

  8. brightmoon says

    Ok now I wanna see a picture of his great grandfather.
    I’ve got a picture of mine that I just love . Unfortunately he died before I was born but I remember my great grandmother.

  9. PaulBC says

    brightmoon@13 One of my favorite ancestor photos is my great grandfather in a top hat and suit looking very much like Rich Uncle Pennybags (the Monopoly man). He was a prominent Brooklyn lawyer and affluent I’m sure. I don’t know where the money went, maybe lost in 1929. I call it the family riches-to-rags photo, though I’m doing OK. I just don’t dress like that.

  10. hemidactylus says

    I’ve only seen my Swedish grandpa in pics. He died when my mom was young. He doesn’t look like royalty but someone after a few hours drinking at a bar ready to round up the locals and conquer Norway on a raging bender and bucket of surströmming. No wimpy lutefisk for him. He looked hella mean.

  11. birgerjohansson says

    If you are a heir to the throne you will obviously have psychic powers, potentially you might go super-sayan.
    Problem: Vegeta will have a beef with you the rest of your life.

  12. KG says

    I used to have a spendid photo of one of my great-grandfathers in motorcycle leathers – it must be somewhere but I can’t find it. With long white hair and beard, he looks like an aged Hell’s Angel. Family tradition, unfortunately, is that he was an abusive alcoholic.

  13. KG says

    Bruce Fuentes@8,
    Looney she may be, but are youa Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Elephant? She must have done something pretty amazing to get that!!!

  14. says

    @9: A Jewish Pope? That’s lame and boring. What would a Jewish Pope accomplish today? It’s not like Christianity isn’t already tethered to the Old Testament for its entire history…

  15. KG says

    Reginald Selkirk@9,
    At least according to the Vatican itself, the very first Pope (although that title wasn’t used until centuries later), was Jewish: a Galilean by the name of Simon, a.k.a. Peter.