Kingdom of Lovely

The Kingdom of Lovely, was a micronation, mostly focused online, which was started by Danny Wallace as a part of the BBC comedy-documentary series titled "How to Start Your Own Country". Although the Kingdom carried on for a while after the series, mostly on the world of Micras, the Kingdom's website was eventually shut down by the BBC, and only a handful of scaterred forums and chats maintained the Kingdom's legacy. By 2013, however, their were no large groups associated with the Kingdom in existence, with the last forums closing down by late 2012/early 2013.

The actual land the block of flats is built upon is not claimed by Lovely, and therefore Lovely remains a part of the United Kingdom according to international law.

The country
The official territory of Lovely is Danny Wallace's flat in Bow, London, but citizens of Lovely (who join through the micronation's website or its section of the BBC website) are invited to declare a room, or even their entire house, to be an embassy for the country by taking a photograph displaying Lovely's flag within their dwelling.

The Kingdom of 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 Jack. 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".

The country's unit of currency is the Interdependent Occupational Unit (IOU). The currency is based on the phrase "time is money" – IOUs are exchangable for an amount of the recipient's time, e.g. paying a citizen for 5 minutes of washing up. Currently, each member of the micronation's official messageboard receives one tenth of an IOU for each post made. No way to make use of these accumulated IOUs has yet been announced.

During the run of How to Start Your Own Country, additional material was broadcast to digital TV viewers after each episode in the style of a national broadcaster named Citizen TV. This was presented live by Danny Wallace and featured news, a special guest (usually a member of Danny's government) and Wallace conversing with citizens who had called in. A memorable moment occurred when Danny fired his foreign minister Rich live on air for lack of activity.

Danny attempted to submit a song of his own composition, known as '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 Danny 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. Danny then submitted his song to the BBC in an attempt to receive their backing, but the BBC judges were unimpressed.



History
Danny had originally tried to start his own 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, who once worked as a security guard at Tesco, making him the closest thing Danny had to an army. However, the Metropolitan Police were contacted by some perturbed locals, and Wallace was forced to call off the invasion. After speaking to a number of people including the claimed leaders of Sealand, the author Erwin Strauss and Dennis Hope, who claims to own the moon, Danny declared his flat to be a sovereign nation on 1 January 2005 and he set about populating the micronation. The country remained nameless for several weeks after it declared itself independent, and thousands of suggestions for names were put forward online. Danny 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.

Lovely continued to be active on the fictional world of Micras, although due to a serious drop of activity, it renounced almost all of its claims, retreating to just three small islands. These islands were later annexed by another Micras nation. Lovely still survived on a few scattered forums and chats, however, these online communities had exceedingly little to do with micronationalism itself, and by September 2012 their was just one major forum left. This was later closed some time between September 2012 and May 2013

Government
The Government of Lovely largely consists of friends of King Danny who were recruited at a meeting held at a London pub. Other ministers were chosen by a public vote on the website or awarded their positions as a reward for particularly hard work on behalf of the nation. Hardworking citizens can also be rewarded with the Order of Excellence of King Danny (OED), an accolade similar to a British OBE.

Criticism
Some have shown their concern at the fact that Lovely seems to be a bit of a mockery or satire of micronationalism.