British people. Will you celebrate?

@MartinII I don't think the quote is meant to be accurate at all.

It looks lazy, ignorant and sarcastic; and might not have originated in Great Britain at all; but in some country that likes to belittle others.

@ArishMell You are probably right. But people outside the UK have mixed views about our monarchy. Quite a lot of Americans, and some Europeans, are rather in love with our Royal family. Such people are probably underrepresented on SW though!

@MartinII I think you are right - and of course a few European countries are still monarchies.

@Strictmichael75 Try the Netherlands.

@MartinII ... or Andorra, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Spain, Sweden, and the Vatican 😏

@helenS Thank you. Most informative. I hadn’t realised that Macron was legally monarch of Andorra, as well as practically monarch of France. I need to visit Denmark and Liechtenstein in order to get the full set.

@MartinII Norway. I didn't mention the Monarchy of Norway 😏

@MartinII Macron is neither the monarch of France or Andorre, he is the elected President of France, Denmark, Spain, Belgium and Sweden have elected presidents or prime ministers

@Strictmichael75 I’m afraid you are wrong. I didn’t know about Andorra until Helen told me, but it turns out that the elected President of France is also monarch of Andorra. Denmark, Belgium, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands all have elected Prime Ministers (or, strictly speaking, people who become Prime Minister if they can command a majority in an elected parliament) but they also have monarchs, just as the UK does. France is the only one of the countries listed which has an elected President and no monarch. (When I said that Macron was practically monarch of France I was making a joke. He does, of course, have far greater powers than any of the monarchs.)

@helenS A third one for my bucket list. People keep telling me Oslo is nice, but it sounds cold to me, and I think the beer is very expensive.

@MartinII The reason why beer is so expensive in Norway is mainly due to [u]heavy[/u] taxation. Regular beer is taxed at 22.4 NOK per liter, [u]in addition to the other taxes[/u] such as VAT at 25 %. This means that if you pay 30 NOK for a 1/2 L can of beer, you first have to remove the 25 % VAT, that gives [b]22.5 NOK[/b]. Then we have to subtract the 11.2 (half of 22.4) NOK for the alcohol fee. This leaves you with a price of [b]11.3 NOK[/b] for the beer after all taxes have been removed.
So in other words, when you buy a beer for 30 NOK in Norway, 18.7 NOK (almost 2/3) goes directly to the government, while only 11.3 NOK goes towards the grocery store, and the beer producer.

Of course, those heavy taxes are only in our own best interest. The government know what's good for us.

@helenS Of course they do!

@MartinII A Nanny state is what we all need. 😐