Fake Twitter page prompts royal rebuttal

A feed on the popular microblog website Twitter has caused consternation at the Swedish Royal Court which has been unable to shut off the stream of often erroneous information about members of the royal family.

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The feed, which goes under the name of Kungliga Hovstaterna (Royal Court) has been in operation for some time and the Royal Court has now felt compelled to deny that it has any connection to official sources.

"We do not have a Twitter feed, we are looking at alternatives to close unwanted Twitter pages," said Nina Eldh at the Royal Court to Swedish society magazine Svensk Damtidning.

The feed mixes up accurate reports of events involving the royal household with false and often humorous items.

Among the posts published in recent days include one indicating that the royal couple are not over enamoured with their wedding gift from the Swedish people presented at their reading of the banns ceremony:

"The gift, a 1000-piece glassware set, worth 300,000 kronor ($37,000) which the royal couple received from the Swedish people is now for sale on Tradera," referring to a Swedish auction website similar to eBay.

The King's musical tastes are also exposed:

"To celebrate the anniversary of the Beatles Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band-release today H.M. the King listened to Fixing a Hole 30 times."

The page's backers indicated that they were not averse to a spot of self-deprecating wit:

"The situation with a fake Twitter account in the name of the royal family is being investigated as we write. Do not rely on unauthorized information."

The patently unauthorized Twitter feed spares none of the royal brood with Prince Carl Phillip's purported partiality to the television series 24, and modest English language skills, the subject of a couple of posts:

"A little emergency. Due to National Day celebrations H.R.H. Prince Carl Philip missed an episode of 24. Can someone post it on Pirate Bay?"

"It concerns episode 23, season 8 of 24. Important with the Swedish subtitles. Otherwise, it's so hard to keep up."

Princess Madeleine's period of official royal inactivity following her break up from Stockholm lawyer Jonas Bergström is referred in the context of whether her sickness absence has been approved by the Social Insurance Agency.

"Princess Madeleine is absent from work today as well and in anticipation of a Social Insurance Agency investigation no further statements will be made about her."

The tweets have been particularly numerous over the weekend in connection with the National Day celebrations, which in keeping with custom were a typically low key affair.

"National Day is a fine old tradition that was introduced way back in 1982. Since 1996, it is also a salute day."