Exhibition: Exclusive Carpets

(Year 235, Spring) This weekend a different exhibition could be visited at the Kasbah Gallery in San Myshuno. A total of 18 exclusive Victorian carpets could be admired, and high society was not hard to attract.

The rugs, all of perfect quality, share a story that might place them in our history book. They were crafted for the Year 150 coronation of King Tybe, and left Victoriania. Unfortunately cargo got lost in storage, and that's where the story ends. Nobody knows for sure how it could happen, and where the container spent the next 84 years. Last year the rugs were discovered and continued their travel to Mazaloom.

Election Day: Will You Vote?

(Year 235, Spring) It's 1st day of Spring, and this year there is am election. In other words, it's Election Day, and we traveled to Spice Market in San Myshuno to check with people if they had already voted.

The standard questions were:

A. Where do you live?
B. Why are you here?
C. Will you vote?
D. Who will become our next Prime Minister?

A group of 3 turned out to be Miko Ojo, Akira Kibo, and their teenage son, Pecci.

Polly Peters honored by region San Myshuno

(Year 234, Fall) Last week Polly Peters (59) received the Mazaloom Medal of Honor. At a small ceremony at the Council House in Magnolia Promenade she got the medal for years of engagement on behalf of the industry workers nation wide.

It was Myshuno Mayor and LEFT Politician Anaya Jang who represented the regional Council. She is not the San Myshuno Councilor, but she is the Mayor of the Myshuno district (Spice Market and Arts Quarter) where Peters resides.

Interview: Prime Minister Rob Wilder

(Year 234, Spring) Mr Rob Wilder has served as our Prime Minister since Year 230, and for the first time he allowed the press to meet his family at Uptown in San Myshuno.

Married twelve years ago: Mrs Holly Alto and Mr Rob Wilder.

No photos taken in the huge 3 stories apartment, but the session took place at the terrace.

While the Nomination Day candidates from his RIGHT party won't go public until Fall this year, we know for sure that Mr Rob Wilder (73) won't run again for the the upcoming election. Is he fine with that?

Greetings from the Stone Family (at home)

A step out of the box today. My Stone family were thrilled to find the picture seen below. Sarah Stone (right), partner Alexander Meshram, and teen son John Stone (left). Posing at a square in Nordhaven was more than they could dream of.

- We reside at Spice Market in San Myshunio, Sarah explains. - We are quite poor, and would never afford 3 tickets up north to Nordhaven. Airplane would be out of the question, so we would need to go by buss via Magnolia Promenade, Brightchester, Henford, Newcrest, and Windenburg to reach Nordhaven. That would sum up to quite a bit, so we are not likely to travel this far, making it nice seeing this "postcard" from a travel that we can only dream of.

Stately Estate for the Prime Minister?

(Year 233, Fall) Up to this day, the Prime Minister of Mazaloom was never offered a stately owned estate suited for the duties coming with the position. Former prime ministers did stay with their family, just like they did before winning the election. The subject has now been debated by People Chamber, and changes are coming!

Prime Minister Rob Wilder (72) is the one who introduced this case. Staying with your family makes the job harder because the security must be considered constantly, and your spouse and children might be dragged into whatever consequencies following your political battles and statements.

Noldus the Clown decorating the Nation

(Year 233, Summer) Once again the mysterious Noldus the Clown grabs everyone's attention. His popularity seems to grow even when he is not showing up in persona. It's been a while since he appeared in San Sequoia, and most fans accepted that he had done the 8 locations that were expected. Yet nobody did reveal the clown's identity, but it seems like most followers care less.

- His identity is Noldus the Clown! says one fan. - That's all I need to know!

But then, this morning something unexpected happened!

Mysterious Clown appears in San Myshuno!

(Year 233, Spring) He was observed in Windenburg and Tartosa, and still nobody knows who he is or where he comes from. Last night he was observed at Prome, San Myshuno.

A clown fronting national politics?

Donald Gibbs was closing the bar where he serves, and walked by Council House in Magnolia Promenade. Then he jumped when he suddenly saw the sad clown standing there in front of the entrance!

- It was too late for a normal clown for kids, you know! I think it was a bit after 1 AM, because we close at 1 AM. He just stood there and said nothing. Totally mute! And did not move at all! It was rather scary!

Gibbs quickly took a couple pictures of the clown, and decided to share them on SimMe.

Our kids deserve better Toy stores!

(Year 232, Winter) What if you could visit a good toy store to buy toys and skill items for your child? Well, in Mazaloom this seems rather complicated at the moment. In fact, you will hardly find any stores aimed towards babies or children at all. Baby expert Heidi L. Wooblershield (52) had enough!

- This is nothing but sad! They used to have a decent corner here at the Old Salt House in San Myshuno, but look at it now! It looks like an abandoned storage room that you entered by mistake!

Heidi knows how important toys are to a child growing up, as she raised 4 of them.

Baroness Amalia doing business with Cousin?

(Year 232, Fall) One of them lives at Porto Luminosa in Tartosa, the other one up north at Old Crest in Newcrest. The other day an observant journalist noticed the two cousins' little get together on a public bench in San Myshuno's Fashion District. The two women, Baronesse Amalia de Vert (31) and Miss Elsa Gobelin (68), both belong to the outer circles of Mazaloom's aristocracy. But that's pretty much all they got in common.

While Amalia (left) is known as the royal palace's trouble child who grew up, married and got herself a peerage created just for her, by her older half-brother, HRM King Tarriot, Elsa comes from a hard working family who over several generations built up a fashion house in Windenburg. Amalia still did not work a single day in her life, while Elsa is majority owner of Gobelin Fashion, Inc. While Amalia is Head of her new House of Hoffstar, Elsa is head of the much older House of Gobelin.

Exhibition: My Estate is my Palace

(Year 232, Summer) We already heard about the adjustments of the large peerage, where 12 high nobility peers were reduced to 8. A final confirmation of these changes is expected this Fall. The Royal Chamber, which is overseeing the large peerage as well as initiating these changes, now wants to focus more on the 8 high nobility peers that are still considered high nobility. And why not do so through a mini exhibition?

A dedicated crowd attended the exhibition opening of «My Estate is my Palace».

This weekend the exhibition «My Estate is my Palace» opened at the Casbah Gallery at Arts Quarter in San Myshuno.

San Myshuno split or not? Final Vote!

(Year 232, Summer) Our capital city, San Myshuno, has literally been among the bigger challenges of the ongoing Regional Reform Y233. The goal is to avoid both the very large regions, like the current Region 12 Mazaloom which includes San Myshuno, as well as the tiny ones, like Region 8 Ticktop. The People Chamber already decided that a region needs 200,000 residents to qualify for one extra seat at the Chamber, and that no region shall have more than a total of five seats.

Splitting the city? This is San Myshuno's old Myshuno district.

Therefore, Ticktop's 4,000 residents must merge with a bigger neighbor, and if San Myshuno forms a new region it will get only 5 seats. But as those seats will only serve 1,000,000 the remaining 420,000 citizens of San Myshuno will not get the extra two seats - unless the city split. Technically no region should count much more than 1,000,000 residents because bigger units are harder to administrate.

It all boils down to one remaining question: Shall San Mysuno split in order to form two regions, or shall the city stay one region but miss out on a couple seats at the People Chamber?

Gossips #9

(Year 231, Spring) Welcome to another gossips edition! This time some fresh Spring gossips, right before we get to this year's Social Season! I'm Antoinette Morck, milk farmer from Henford-on-Bagley, but many years as a city resident brought me pretty close to the celebrities cauldron, *shrug*. This is my 9th edition - hey, someone must have gotten those numbers wrong? It feels like I just got started!

I'm so glad that Region 8 Advorton, including Chestnut Ridge, seems to get more into publicity. I'll be looking out for regional gossips, hopefully there will be some in my next edition. Today I must warn  you there will be very little nobility gossips. I simply had to mash together news from so many other instances, there was no room for nobility!

Adrian Triplets Celebrating YA Birthday!

(Year 230, Spring) There's no doubt the triplets Tamara, Khloe and Clara Adrian will make the single male population of Mazaloom line up, in fact - they probably already are quite popular! Last night they celebrated their young adult birthday at Planet Honey Pop! at Fashion District in San Myshuno.

Triplet's birthday party at Planet Honey Pop!

The 3 sisters had invited their friends to a hangout at the well known karaoke bar.

Grey Sims annoyed by Commercial Boards

(Year 229) San Myshuno residents are complaining about the commercial boards taking up more and more of the public room. Grey Sims member, Sybil H. Rasoya (77), says Spice Market is bombarded with glowing signs with bright in-your-face ads. It has become even worse now before the Election. - This needs to be addressed!

Cybil H. Rasoya is not happy with the commercial boards!

- We are used to some commercials in the city, and I am not suggesting that all advertising must stop, but there is a big difference between static painted advertisements on a wall and glowing illuminated signs that might even blink or constantly switch ads. I never fancied roof top boards either, but those placed on the pavement are even worse! If you forgot your glasses at home you might accidentally walk right into them, then get dizzy and walk right into the traffic, and get seriously wounded! We can do fine without such a danger!

Y230 Election: The Toughest Battles

(Year 229) With only the Winter until the big Year 230 election is coming up, it's time to highlight a few of the more interesting local battles! Each hood will have its Hood Contact, and normally only in a few hoods there are candidates from all three political parties, RIGHT party, LEFT party and MIDDLE party. Now that the N.A.P. votes are in and the parties have publicized their ranked list of candidates, we finally know who will be running. In 32 hoods there will be minimum one Hood Contact candidate, but only 6 of those hoods will have a full 3 parties battle: Arts Quarter in San Myshuno (Region 12), Sable Square in Brindleton Bay (Region 12), Upperton in Gloomville (Region 12), Oldtown in Windenburg (Region 1), Crafthole Town (Region 4) and Tartosa (Region 3). Let's check out some of them!

In San Myshuno's Arts Quarter LEFT's Anaya Jang is the most merited Politician as she is currently leading the Culture & Entertainment Dept. of The People Chamber.

Abhrin Wusha (58, RIGHT), Anaya Jang (63, LEFT) and Chaos Kessler (35, MIDDLE).

Jang is likely to keep her position as Hood Contact, but also RIGHT party's Abhrin Wusha is a long timer, he might be a serious contender as he was 5 years ago only 4 votes behind Jang.

Nobility: Orders and their Sashes

(Year 229) How about a closer look on those sashes? With the high number of peerages in Mazaloom kingdom, one should expect lots of pictures from gala events with sashes and tiaras all over the place. But this far there were rather few such reports on this blog. That does not mean that there is not a rigid system of sashes, though. So, in this article I'll try to introduce you to the most essential. Keep in mind that although my system is based on real life stuff, some details are not ;)

The Peerage of Mazaloom, also known as the large peerage consists of 4 noble levels: Royals, Dukes, Counts and Barons. Peerages close to the Monarch are granted with a so called District Order (aka friendship orders), which make them high nobility. Peerages with no such order stated in their Letter of Patent, will be considered low nobility (or actually, just plain nobility). While the unique sash color refers to the District Order, the star brooch worn with the sash comes in 4 version referring to 4 different rankes within the large peerage.

1. King/Queen
Top notch of this system is naturally the Monarch. Also the spouse (Queen/Prince Consort) and heir apparent (Crown Prince/Princess) are seen as of same top rank. They all wear the 1st level of the star brooch, regardless of which sash they may use for the occasion.

Because noble men normally wear a sash inside a tuxedo, rather than over their shoulder, we'll let a female model display the sashes for this article. Some male uniforms come with the star brooch already, and when that is the case I can not replace the brooch with the correct version. But for females these details are followed rigidly as they are separate accessories.

Most Monarchs will at some point in their lives lead a military career. Most reach Officer levels, either through hard work or granted them as they are head of the military organization. For gala events they will often wear the uniform with a red sash.

Old Salt House Scandal

(Year 229) It's not easy running a busy retail shopping mall in the city, especially not if the current Neighborhood Action Plans (N.A.P.s) are less suitable for your business and your costumers. Thankfully, His Royal Majesty King Tarriot of Mazaloom does pay attention to businesses no matter what hood they are in.

Last week he unannounced stopped by Old Salt House Shopping Mall to buy some flowers. Customers paused their shopping in awe, and more people arrived from the square near by. The Monarch signed autographs and posed for pictures, but without asking to talk with the owner.

The Simmerville Show - Premiere!

(Year 228) Finally, my new TV-show is airing! It's lots of fun with a mix of guests in studio and video reports from visiting local households. Main host Fritz Mervil (CEO of Simmerville Studio, Inc.) is assisted by a Castle Reporter and Guest Caretaker.

This show is also a nifty way for me to share stories and builds from my Region 12. There's plenty of references to the past, but you won't need any knowledge to watch, neither will there be many links between the shows. Each show lasts about 12 minutes,

I hope you'll enjoy :)

Winterfest at House of Saxor

(Year 228) Just like any family, the House of Saxor has their own routines and traditions to secure a good Winterfest. Their huge penthouse at 1 Torendi Tower in San Myshuno is larger than the average home (link to previous tour of the estate below), so they tend to focus on seasonal decor for the rooms they use the most, and where they intend to entertain their many Winterfest guests. Central in the planning are Butler, Severine Phlum, and Cook, Ms Anila Rossell.

Left to right: Butler Severine, Duke Victus and Duchess Gloria in Cordenza's drawingroom.

The planning started several months ago. At the 3M (Monday Morning Meeting), attended by the household members who are on the House's pay roll, and assisted by the Butler occasionally. At these meetings all activity is planned, and in Fall the upcoming Winterfest will naturally take a certain bit of the agenda. In houses like this, a dukedom in fact, Head of House is in charge and also is the one communicating with the servants via the Butler, but Duchess Gloria (72) gets wholeheartedly involved with most affairs taking place within the home.