Kingdom of Lovely | Micronation |
Coat of Arms | Motto: Die dulci freure
(English: Have a nice day)
Anthem: "National Anthem" by Banks & Wag | | Status: | New | | Location: | Danny Wallace's flat in Bow, London | | Area claimed: | None (see footnote) | | Membership: | ~58,165 (as of December 1, 2006) | | Date of foundation: | 1 January 2005 | | Leadership: | King Danny I (Danny Wallace) 2005- | | Purported organisational structure: | Constitutional Monarchy | | Language: | English | | Purported currency: | IOU (Interdependent Occupational Unit) | Notes - The land used by the block of flats has not been claimed by Lovely, so it remains the territory of the UK under international law.
- A National Holiday (Lovely Day) is celebrated on 2 September
| The Kingdom of Lovely is a partly Internet-based micronation which claims the flat of its creator and ruler – the comic writer Danny Wallace – as its territory. As with many of Wallace's projects, the micronation was conceived with media in mind; in this case a television series, produced during 2004-2005 for the BBC and called How to Start Your Own Country. Lovely has 58,165 citizens registered on its website (this figure is static), and 881 accounts registered on its forum. The micronation of Sealand Micronations – sometimes also referred to as a cybernations, fantasy countries, model countries, and new country projects – are entities that resemble independent nations or states but which are unrecognized by world governments or major international organisations. ...
Image File history File links Summary Lovely Coat Of Arms Licensing File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Banks & Wag are award winning composers based in London. ...
Bow is an area of East London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. ...
December 1 is the 335th (in leap years the 336th) day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
For the Manfred Mann album, see 2006 (album). ...
January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
This does not cite any references or sources. ...
The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...
September 2 is the 245th day of the year (246th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
The micronation of Sealand Micronations – sometimes also referred to as a cybernations, fantasy countries, model countries, and new country projects – are entities that resemble independent nations or states but which are unrecognized by world governments or major international organisations. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ...
How To Start Your Own Country was a six-part British television series aired by the BBC at 10:00pm from August 3, 2005, until September 6, 2005. ...
The official territory of Lovely is Wallace's flat in Bow, London, but citizens of Lovely are invited to declare a room, or some other building or land belonging to them, to be an embassy for the country by taking a photograph displaying Lovely's flag there. Bow is an area of East London, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. ...
A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one nation state present in another nation state to represent the sending state in the receiving State. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
History Lovely's flag, coat of arms and motto were designed by London-based design studio Pentagram. The pixellated coat-of-arms is intended to reflect the internet-based nature of the micronation, as did the studio's final flag, a pixellated Union Flag. Wallace, however, preferred a different flag proposal, featuring a blue stripe and a red stripe at erratic angles on a white background – that is, the same colours as the Union Jack but positioned off-centre in an eccentric fashion. The Latin motto is Die dulci freure (sic – the correct Latin is fruere), meaning "Have a nice day". Pentagram is a design studio that was founded in 1972 by Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky in Needham Road, West London, UK. They now have offices in New York, San Francisco, Austin and Berlin. ...
Flag Ratio: 1:2 The Union Flag (also known as the Union Jack; see discussion below) is the national flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. ...
Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ...
Currently the Citizens of Lovely are in the process of choosing a new flag to be the Citizens flag whilst retaining the original as the King's or Royal flag.
Wallace originally tried to start a nation by "invading" Eel Pie Island in London using a DUKW landing vehicle with the help of his friend Jon Bond, now Lovely's Minister of Defence. Bond was chosen for the role having once worked as a security guard at Tesco, making him the closest thing Wallace had to an army. However, the Metropolitan Police were contacted by local people, and Wallace was forced to call off the "invasion". After speaking to a number of people including the leaders of Sealand and Dennis Hope, who claims to own the moon, Wallace declared his flat to be a sovereign nation on 1 January 2005 and he set about populating the micronation and recording the television series. Other notable interviewees included Noam Chomsky (who discussed democracy) and a prisoner condemned to death at a prison in United States with whom Wallace discussed crime and punishment in an emotionally charged episode. Eel Pie Island, in the River Thames at Twickenham in London, England, can only be reached by a footbridge or boat. ...
DUKW The DUKW (popularly pronounced DUCK) is a six-wheel-drive amphibious truck that was originally designed inside General Motors Corporation during World War II for transporting goods and troops over land and water and for use approaching and crossing beaches in amphibious attacks. ...
Tesco plc is a UK-based international grocery and general merchandising retail chain. ...
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is the Home Office police force responsible for Greater London, with the exception of the square mile of the City of London. ...
For other meanings see Sealand (disambiguation). ...
The introduction to this article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject matter. ...
January 1 is the first day of the calendar year in both the Julian and Gregorian calendars. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Avram Noam Chomsky (Hebrew and Yiddish: ××‘×¨× × ×•×¢× ×—×מסקי) , Ph. ...
The national anthem video was recorded in late March 2005 in Greenwich Park, with the help of some of the early citizens plus members of Join Me, a "collective" begun by the King some years earlier. The country remained nameless for several weeks after it declared itself independent, and thousands of suggestions for names were put forward online. Wallace chose his two favourites, "Home" and "Lovely", and let his citizens decide the winner by online vote. The country was officially named on 2 September 2005 at an invitation-only gathering of citizens held in Leicester Square. This day is now an official holiday of Lovely called "Lovely Day". One of the Royal Parks of London, Greenwich Park is a former deer-park in Greenwich and one of the largest single green spaces in south east London. ...
For the song by HIM, see Join Me in Death. ...
September 2 is the 245th day of the year (246th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
Leicester Square at night in 2005: a view towards the northeast corner. ...
During the broadcasting run of "How to Start Your Own Country", additional material was broadcast to digital TV viewers after each episode. This took the style of a national broadcast named Citizen TV. It was presented live by Danny Wallace and featured news, a special guest (usually a member of Wallace's government) and conversations with "citizens" who had called in. An early political change occurred when Wallace fired his first foreign minister live on air and appointed citizen Kieran Collins in his place. Digital television (DTV) uses digital modulation and compression to broadcast video, audio and data signals to television sets. ...
Wallace attempted to submit a song of his own composition, Stop The Mugging And Start The Hugging, as the Lovely entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2006. The contest's scrutineer, Svante Stockselius, met with Wallace and was sympathetic to his cause but informed him that Lovely could not enter the Contest as it has no national television or radio station of its own and therefore could not join the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Wallace then submitted his song to the BBC (which is an EBU member which supports the UK entry to the contest), in an attempt to receive their backing — their judges, however, were unimpressed. The Eurovision Song Contest 2006 was the fifty-first Eurovision Song Contest, held at the Olympic Indoor Hall in Athens, Greece on the 18 May 2006 (for the semi-final) and 20 May 2006 (for the final). ...
Stig Svante Stockselius (born December 31, 1955) is a Swedish journalist and television executive, currently the Head of Song Contests at the European Broadcasting Union, and the executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) and the Junior Eurovision Song Contest. ...
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; French: , and unrelated to the European Union) was formed on 12 February 1950 by 23 broadcasting organisations from Europe and the Mediterranean at a conference in the coastal resort of Torquay in Devon, UK. In 1993, the International Radio and Television Organisation (OIRT), an equivalent...
The British Broadcasting Corporation, usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers, employing 26,000 staff in the United Kingdom alone and with a budget of more than GB£4 billion. ...
The series also showed Wallace's attempts to gain official recognition for Lovely at the United Nations, which was established to be the true mark of statehood. These efforts were unsuccessful, largely because of Lovely's lack of independent territory; Wallace's own flat being within the UK. The foundation of the U.N. The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate co-operation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress and human rights issues. ...
As of 2007, Royal developments in the country appear to have stopped, with the King heavily engaged in other projects.
Economy The country's unit of currency is the Interdependent Occupational Unit (IOU). The currency is based on the phrase "time is money" – IOUs are exchangeable for an amount of the recipient's time, e.g. paying a citizen for 5 minutes of washing up. Previously, each member of the micronation's official BBC messageboard received one tenth of an IOU for each post made, but since the move to the new forum this has been abandoned. No way to make use of the accumulated IOUs has yet been announced. This can be compared with local exchange trading schemes. Look up IOU in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
An Internet forum, also known as a message board or discussion board, is a web application that provides for online discussions, and is the modern descendant of the bulletin board systems and existing Usenet news systems that were widespread in the 1980s and 1990s. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
Government The Government of Lovely originally consisted of friends of Wallace who were recruited at a meeting held at a London pub (see here). One of these was "fired" and replaced by a citizen; other Royal appointments have been made, and the first open elections to specific posts were held via the official website. Subsequently there have been further elections – and disputes – on the official internet forum and other websites. This leaves the current government a matter of constant debate.
Sport The Lovely Football Association or LFA is a Football Organisation set up in September 2005 for the micronation of Lovely. On 26 November 2005, the first league match was played in Bristol where Danvers Athletic beat Mangotsfield FC 5-0. The LFA had died but was revived on 13 January 2007 by the current President Kris Mantle. Look up Football in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ...
November 26 is the 330th day (331st in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ...
2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...
View from Cumberland Basin of the Clifton Suspension Bridge and the Avon Gorge Bristol (IPA: ) is a city, unitary authority and ceremonial county in South West England, 115 miles (185 km) west of London. ...
Education The University of Lovely was probably the country's first official educational facility, although this fact has been disputed. It offers courses on being lovely and information on what education means to the nation. It was officially recognised in September 2005 by the King, and was created by Citizen Perfecthill. On the 30th of October the University of Status was also made available to those who had signed up.
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