Reading is something indulged in by the higher magical ranks and is seen by them as a necessity as they need to  keep up to date with the latest spells and charms techniques.  Ranks like the sprites leave reading (and writing) to “toffs”. 

Reading focuses on the magical trade.  What we would consider fictional fairy tales they see as non-fiction or documentaries.  The idea of making up stories as we do is looked down on.  Stories happen in the Kingdom.  They are re-enacted in villages around the Kingdom to keep the tales alive that way.  It is considered a great honour for a girl to be picked to play her village’s Cinderella, the difference being she ends  up becoming Cinderella and meets and marries her own Prince Charming.  This is why making up stories is despised.  The general feeling is that there are enough stories as it is and the ones that exist are factual so why bother inventing any?

It is also considered if a writer is prepared to lie to get their story "across", what else would said author lie about?  Eileen took to books and reading well on her defection.  This was partly to revise English history and culture to help her blend in but she has developed a love for the works of P.G. Wodehouse, which has come as a surprise to her daughter, Jenny.  Her mother doesn't usually "do" light-hearted.

All species can communicate telepathically as everyone has an identity code, made up of two separate parts, one of which is the genus code, the other the individual code.  Everybody has to recite the code of the person they want to communicate with before being able to use crystal ball technology or telepathy. 

The Queen’s code is known to all as she encourages her subjects to keep in contact, much to her Council’s disgust.  She thinks their aloofness has done much to encourage public disillusion with politicians.  The Queen also knows every subject’s code and Eileen knows most of them (with knowledge to be able to work out the rest). 

Of course the quality of telepathic communication varies - most people don’t eavesdrop telepathic sprite talks as sprites are rude and low.  They’d do this anyway but the fact it stops eavesdroppers is another reason for them not to raise the level of their conversations!

The public love the royal visits as they like a decent show, the Queen always looks good and they like to laugh at their high born nobility having to put themselves out for their monarch.  The public also suspects Her Majesty has a quiet snigger about this too.  As does the nobility. All know there’s nothing they can do about it.  The Queen sees all of this as a marvellous way of communicating directly with her public.  She's right.  Some of the Council think some of the visits can be a case of royal showing off.  They're not entirely wrong.

Less welcome is Roherum’s purple prose on every visit.  This is a guy who cannot see anything wrong with hyperbole and for whom there can never be too many adjectives.  Communication for him is working out just how much hype to put in.

Royal visits are set up by the Queen, with support from the Council and the leaders of the village or town chosen for the visit though the ruler is thinking of employing someone in the Palace to do this for her. She’s happy with Wes being her aide for filing, running errands and keeping her diary up to date but is less sure if he could manage the practical side of arranging a visit and do it without offending someone. Wes isn’t known for tact. In the meantime the Queen will keep organizing her own jollies.  She loves meeting the people seeing it as a vital part of her job. 

The Council see the importance of the visits but believes the Queen gets some of her less “sound” ideas from meeting the hoi polloi that little bit too often.  They know they can’t voice that opinion.  The Queen would give them very short shrift. She is very happy to communicate very directly with them!

Arts play an important role in the Kingdom.  The Grand Hall in the Palace is renowned for having the most gold objects anywhere in the magical realm so metal working is highly prized as any dwarf would tell you.  The Queen is also proud of the ornate sculptured black entrance gates to the Palace and its massive ruby and sapphire main doors.  There’s no shortage of work for jewellers in the Kingdom!

There are portraits focussing mainly on landscapes (and funnily enough none of the areas made barren by too much magical fighting, they seem to have been forgotten about for some reason).  The Queen doesn’t have much time for music though fanfares accompany her wherever so she goes so that may affect her attitude to brass band music.  The populace at large know what they like.  There are some galleries and libraries in the larger villages and towns though, as with other worlds, it does tend to be the la-di-da that visit them most. 

Music is developing in the Kingdom.  There is a growing awareness of the need to get away from the harp playing image and to prove the Kingdom can produce other styles of music.  Guitars and pianos, the idea imported from earth, are starting to catch on and the Queen has encouraged recitals to be held in the larger settlements.  She has even attended a few.  The Council aren’t sure they approve, L’Evallier is downright sniffy about it, but the Queen’s favour means the musicians are safe. 

Elves have taken to the new music well.  Much to everybody’s surprise so have the dwarves and sprites.  Most assumed these groups’ contribution to culture was pretty limited.  Musical style is mainly classical or light pop. 

Rock and roll is still several centuries away from coming in here.  The Queen is also keen to encourage her subjects to develop their own musical  instruments.  After all her subjects vary in terms of the number of limbs they have and fine motor skills so musical instruments need to reflect that.  Nobody has yet taken up the challenge.

The Palace has several “lives” going on inside it.  There is the Queen and Council and their roles, the Household as it carries out its duties and the “outside staff” (mainly gardeners) who are looked down on by the Household. 

The working day is continuous - there is always someone on duty - and the Lord Chamberlain oversees it all.  Nothing must mar the running of the Palace.  Everything must go smoothly. 

The Palace is richly decorated throughout as you’d expect but the staff quarters are furnished as per the relevant staff member’s tastes and magical abilities.  Sprites like Wes have basic staff accommodation.  L’Evallier’s quarters are like a mini-Palace in their own right. 

Every species is represented in the Household too so the Palace is like the Kingdom in miniature.  Again it is down to the Lord Chamberlain to ensure staff relations go as well as can be expected.  This mainly means stopping fighting between the sprites and that the dwarfs and trolls don’t wind each up so much rioting breaks out.

Downstairs life has its own hierarchy in the Palace.  The Lord Chamberlain rules the downstairs world but his daughter, Floxanna, can run rings round him.  She’s the only one who can, even the Queen treats “dear Rosker” with respect. She knows she needs him to run her Palace for her. 

Various members of the nobility seek places amongst the Household staff, even as maids, as it is considered an honour to work there.  The staff are expected to behave well.

The Queen and Eileen, when still in the fairy realm, worked to whenever the job finished whether that work was paperwork, dealing with the Council or killing rogue dragons terrorizing the innocent.  Eileen was often out for well over 24 hours at any one stint and was often known to power nap in trees, down dry wells or whether she thought she would be guaranteed some peace for half an hour or so.

Hanastrew and the squad, because of the nature of their work in tackling the realm's nastier creatures, again completed the task no matter how long it took.  It was understood when not on call or practising stunt flying, powerful spells etc their time was their own.

The Council and Royal Household follow a working day starting from just after midnight and ending 24 hours later.  Unsurprisingly the Council were not amongst those getting up early to start their day early but the royal cooks did.  There are many cheap jibes at the sprites' ability to work at all but most have careers in baking, selling, cleaning etc and have a working day similar to our own.

There are no laws on working hours (except for children and that was only put on the statute book because the Queen's aunt Graxia, from whom Roxannadrell inherited the crown, felt it would tidy the paperwork up if there was something on parchment).

Sports in the Kingdom focus on practising magical skills.  Prowess with a wand or staff is prized!  All species must practice their natural skills regularly - most do this in the evenings or at weekends. 

Tennis and badminton are popular but earth football and rugby are considered common.  Cricket, where the game can take days and still end in a draw, is hugely admired on the grounds it takes genius to come up with a sport like that!  Some of the larger villages are beginning to play cricket.  It keeps the sprites out of trouble, especially if you have a bigger more powerful species acting as umpire so nobody is tempted to use the bat on anything other than the ball.

Magic is used to keep playing fields level and free from any creatures that tend to damage lawns.  In the Kingdom this ranges from moles to griffins to furry monsters to massive dragons.  On earth it is mainly just moles that cause problems!  The Queen, Eileen and Jenny don’t play sports but Hanastrew and the fairy squad are beginning to do so, recognizing that keeping fit will help them with their magical duties. The squad tend to focus on racing - but in the air.

Plant life varies greatly in the Kingdom too from huge trees to gorse like shrubs to flowers in every imaginable colour.  There is no such thing as weeds (so in that respect Derek would consider the realm paradise) and every village and town takes great pride in ensuring their flowers are not only in bloom, they’re at least twice the size of their nearest neighbours. 

The witch community is renowned for their herbal knowledge.  The good witches use their knowledge to help others.  The bad ones use their knowledge to brew poisons.  Dwarves are wary of apples (and old women selling them even more so!) but fruit is grown in most areas similar to that found on earth.  They also have their own fruits, which tend to be luminous in colour, heavily scented, and very juicy.  The reason these haven’t been named is there’s disagreement as to what they should be called given magical fruits have the nasty habit of changing shape depending on how good or bad weather conditions were. 

The Palace grounds are exquisite and range from the lake feeding the Fountain of Youth to a giant flower garden (you should see the size of the royal sunflowers and yes beanstalks are a speciality!), a massive orchard and woodlands.  Teams of gardeners take care of all of these but there is a small garden which is literally the Queen’s own.  Whenever Her Majesty can escape the cares of office for a while, she tends to this garden by herself much to the disapproval of her gardeners,  Household and Council.  The Queen finds it therapeutic to get her hands dirty from time to time.  Everybody else in the Palace finds it awful and can’t understand what’s got into her. 

Villagers take care of their own plots of land.  There are no allotments, everybody literally has their own land, and all see the importance of keeping the Kingdom green.  The Queen would at some point like to set up an official Royal Flower Show but hasn’t got around to it yet thanks to misbehaving fairies (Fresdian and Eileen), witches (Chief Witch, wizards (Brankaresh) and an awkward Council led by the ever awkward L’Evallier.  Maybe one day...

Magical species tend to visit their own kind only.  While some friendships have developed between different groups, these are not encouraged.  Villagers visit each other during the summer months, mainly to pinch ideas for their own fetes or to see how well the opposition is doing.  The Queen and Eileen are/were pretty good at visiting a wide range of settlements and insisted on visiting representatives of all magical species.  It is generally acknowledged the fairy royals are far better than the Council at getting out and about and chatting with the hoi polloi.

Roherum and his camera crew visit the "better" areas of the Kingdom regularly to gather news and ideas for future programmes.  The barren areas they avoid though Eileen, for one, would have welcomed a thorough and proper investigation carried out by FNN into the damage done to these places and what could be done to improve matters.  Sadly that kind of programme needed a journalist with a much stiffer backbone than Roherum.  Not that this came as a surprise to Eileen.

Visiting has been known to lead to fights (and not just between families, the Kingdom equivalent of families quarrelling on Christmas Day).  Certain species who tend to not get many visitors (face it, orcs have never been that popular) can get resentful at those who receive loads but after a spate of incidents of this nature the Queen and Eileen visited the affected areas and made their displeasure very clear.  They also made it very clear what would happen if it happened again.  To date it hasn't.

History is something everyone in the Kingdom takes a huge interest in.  Not only does it have direct relevance to relationships between the different groups (the dwarves and elves being the obvious example), all in the realm are aware of their world being attacked and who by and when their world is responsible for the attacking, thus provoking a violent response back again. 

There are history programmes on FNN (in favour of the fairy royals to nobody’s surprise).  Everybody responsible for history programming takes the official line.  Eileen is the nearest to a revisionist and even she takes most things as gospel.  The Witch always disputed the truth of anything broadcast on FNN as she feels her family was unfairly portrayed and treated.  She has a point but sadly her family were mass murderers and rebels so the fairy royals were right to defend their people against them.  What Eileen queries is whether the royals could’ve intervened sooner, acted more fairly, preventing the need for a forceful defence. Eileen’s queries are not welcome and nobody of lesser rank dare make them.  Eileens's own rank is responsible for keeping Eileen out of the more serious kinds of trouble, the type that can lead to a death sentence.

FNN would like to do a series of  history programmes giving more intimate details on the fairy royals (as opposed to general comments on what good rulers they were, bar Queen Gwendolyn, who everybody acknowledges as awful) but neither Eileen nor the Queen are keen and without their co-operation the programmes won’t be made.  This is due to the fact FNN would need access to the royal files/Library and only these two can grant that.

FNN know the Council are not very keen on them, they owe their existence to the fairy royals so won’t bite the hand that feeds them.  FNN sometimes try to persuade the Queen to allow them access here, knowing it’s a waste of time trying to get Eileen to change her mind, but to date have failed. 

The Queen doesn’t trust them to stick to those royals with a reasonable record.  She thinks they want to dig up all the gossip and scandal concerning Queen Gwendolyn, great-grandmother to Roxannadrell and Eileen. She is happy with the concensus that Gwendolyn was just awful without spelling out too much exactly why that is the right judgement. 

The one comfort the Queen has on all this is that it’s one of the few areas where she and Eileen are united.

The entire Kingdom effectively closes down for August (a little bit like France!).  The Queen heads off to her coastal holiday home.  Her Council heads back to their estates.  The only other time they get to spend any holidays there are at Christmas, when everyone has three weeks off. 

Villages hold their fetes here and stick to the dates they've inherited down the centuries.  These were imposed by the Queen's ancestors to bring an end to fighting between villages close to each other who wanted the same date for their big show.  The fete is the big holiday event for practically everyone.  The better off might go to visit relatives in other parts of the realm but this isn't that common as it is generally felt ordinary magical beings are better off staying where they are. 

Thanks to FNN and Eileen's adventures, the realm is well aware of its beauty spots and also there areas where dragons definitely are found.  The latter is a major factor in discouraging most people's wish to travel. 

Sprites tend to fight most during the summer break given they've got more time on their hands.  There have been calls to imprison the lot of them so everyone else can enjoy their break in peace but this is unlikely to be heeded.  Sprites are very capable of revenge attacks so in villages the majority tend to isolate their imp and pixie communities so any trouble is "contained".

Artists are generally well respected (and well paid if they're any good) in the Fairy Kingdom.  Most artists are landscape painters as these works of art go down the best.  Most villages have their own place where the local artists can display their works and these are well attended.  Rivalries between village artists are common and fights often break out as to who is the best etc.  Naturally Village A artists is fully supported by the whole of Village A, while rival Viilage B artist has the backing of his/her people.  Such disputes often lead to the whole village fighting the other and a good time is generally had by all.  This aspect of the artist life is definitely not approved of by the government.

Musicians are respected (though music is of the classical variety.  Pop and rock music is unknown here).  Writers (especially of fairytales) are also respected.  The latter will give readings on FNN from time to time.  There are no literary festivals as such but village fetes will often have their village artist, village writer etc put on a display of their wares during the fete. 

The Queen, as would be expected, has a very fine collection of portraits though be wary of her sculpture displays.  Not every statue started life as a statue and the ones that were turned into a marble work of art are easy to spot.  They make gargoyles look pretty.  Nobody considers these as proper art because of the magic used to produce them.  This is no comfort to those who get turned into statues.

One thing the Queen does encourage in her kitchens is for her staff to produce meals from all corners of the galaxies, seeing this as a relatively harmless way of exploring other cultures.  This has been something that has generally gone down well though the poisonous puffer fish and anchovies are considered to be best left in Earth's seas.  It is felt that anything that poisonous or, in the case of anchovies, salty should be left alone and that these are God's hints these things should not be eaten.

The Queen is also keen that rare animals in her world are not hunted or used for food.  Unlike her ancestors, she does not feel the need to sample dodo surprise or griffin stew.   Fish fingers did cause a certain amount of confusion in the Royal Household and to the Queen until Eileen explained the principle of the things.  The Queen wishes humans would market things accurately.  How is any passing alien meant to know that fish really don't have fingers? 

The Queen encourages a wide range of cooking techniques and she does enjoy the occasional fry-up.  Her Chief Cook and the team consider their boss to be a joy to cater for as the monarch eats most things and is appreciative, something that could not have been said for previous rulers.  Eileen is considered to be awkward (if something is slightly underdone, say, Eileen will remark on it loudly) but given the fairy godmother is always considered to be stubborn, this is no surprise.  Some in the Kingdom felt Eileen got a little bit of her long overdue comeuppance when she was trying to wean Jennifer, who proved she could be every bit as stubborn as her mother, could scream for longer and had a surprisingly decent aim with jelly.  Eileen needed three spells and a decent cleanup after Jennifer's 2nd birthday party.  Eileen still does not know how either Jennifer or one of her small pals managed to get jelly on top of the pelmets in their lounge.  Eileen would have turned anyone else doing this into dust given she would have considered it a (rude) comment on her jelly making abilities.

The Kingdom has various forms of transportation.  Witches have their brooms (some fairy godmothers use them too, even the occasional wizard).  Most fairies use either an instant transportation spell (the risk here being you may not rematerialize in the same order you dematerialized in, which could be embarrassing at best) or use the cherry transportation trees.

The latter have abacuses which are used to programme co-ordinates for the desired destination.  The branches and root systems are linked all over the magical world to these abacuses.  The tree itself doesn't move (not from looking from the outside)  but the inside of the tree "shakes" representing movement as powerful magic pulsates through the tree to make the thing work.  It is not a smooth ride to put it mildly though Eileen is expert at programming the trees so as to get the best ride possible.

Most magical beings can fly under their own steam though the sprites have to wear special boots which they tap and the distance they can go is limited.  This is partly done by superior magical species to limit the havoc sprites are known to cause given their greatest loves are drinking and fighting. 

The skies in the Kingdom get pretty crowded at rush hour times and collisions are not unknown.  Despite government information films put out by FNN regularly, nobody has shown any signs of wanting to change the way they fly.  This does not surprise Eileen though it does make the Queen and her Council despair.

Communications in the Fairy Kingdom take various forms.  Firstly everyone has telepathic ability.  Everyone has a genus code and individual code so you think of these two numbers to get through to that person's mind.  Technically anyone in the magical realm could contact anyone including the Queen and the Chief Witch (but you would have to be nuts to want to connect to the latter).   Secondly everyone is expected to keep up the art of letter writing.  Most write messages of support to the Queen and/or Witch (depending on their own magical inclinations), others write into FNN and the Council regularly gets bombarded with complaints from their constituents.

Crystal balls can be used like a mobile phone but most prefer not to do this as it is too close to human technology for comfort.  Eileen has used her crystal ball for this but most use these to conjure up images of those they want to contact (and generally stick to friends).  Eileen has communicated with the Witch via crystal ball but given faces tend to look a bit distorted, it really isn't a pretty sight no matter whom you conjure up.  And conjuring up the Witch like that takes nerves of steel so that pretty much means only Eileen would dare do it.

The Palace has a kind of mini post-office as the correspondence received there is catagorized into  Urgent, Important, Nice Letters from Kids and Old Ladies, Complaints and Probably a Nutter but Ought to Check Out Their Claims Just on the Off Chance There Is Any Truth in Them.  Hanastrew and the fairy squad tend to get asked to investigate the latter.  To date they have been able to confirm the writers have all been of the lunatic fringe variety.

The ironic thing is that there are trolls in the Fairy Kingdom but they don't indulge in what we know as trolling!

Public opinions are generally not sought because the Queen considers this sort of journalism undignified to those asking the questions and those are who meant to be answering them.  She also has noted the unerring instinct of the public to go for what she considers the "wrong" option whether they're asked an important "meaning of life" type question or asked what it is they had for breakfast that morning.

Eileen listens to public opinion but would not dream of airing it live, again on grounds of dignity, but Eileen is not above "borrowing" a good idea if she comes across one and so it is best not to publicize these things. 

Having said that the Kingdom's residents do have ways of making their opinions known.  One is by direct correspondence to the Queen and her Council, by writing to FNN themselves (and they can never resist following up people's complaints as they rightly believe if there's any story of dodgy dealings by the government to uncover this is the way to find them) and by protest.  Okay they run the risk of literally being broken up magically but protest is an option and the people protested most weeks during the entire reign of Queen Gwendolyn.  The funny thing was when she was eaten by a dragon, the protests stopped.  The government at the time rightly took that as public endorsement of their actions though they did claim the dragon was there by chance.   Nobody believed it.  Nobody was going to argue it though.

The Fairy Kingdom's climate is generally temperate though it does suffer snow snorms during the winter. It can get so hot in summer flying traffic is limited to ensure flyers on brooms etc don't take all the fresh air and some at least can get down to  the pedestrians below. A second reason is gets so hot in the air the realm doesn't want too many flyers at one time affected by it.  Witches, fairy godmothers, wizards on brooms etc can be a hazard to those below as if someone is overcome by the heat, they will fall off their vehicles and even the magical world can't defy gravity.

The politicial climate has settled down a lot since Queen Gwendolyn's time.  It is generally stable though the Council are beginning to find their feet with Queen Roxannadrell.  They speak their mind and openly question things more, a development Eileen welcomes until she discovers that their most awkward questions and comment are saved for her!  Even Roherum can sometimes ask awkward questions, which disconcerts the weatherman who prefers to think of his rival for the presenting jobs as a berk and evidence to the contrary is not welcome.

The general climate worsens when the Witch decides she is going to take the Kingdom by force.  Ordinary witches, especially those who really do only gather herbs etc for their recipes, find themselves coming under suspicion of abetting their colleague and are routinely stopped and interrogated.  Eileen is against this as she can see the damage it does.  Where fairies and witches have learnt to get along, that becomes endangered and as far as Eileen is concerned the only one who benefits from that is the Chief Witch.

The Fairy News Network is the only broadcaster at the time The Trouble With Mother is set.  Later there is reference to the beginnings of radio broadcasting in the magical realm.  Roherum, FNN's lead "journalist", despises radio simply for its lack of pictures.  But others are beginning to realise a medium which relies on sound has its own magic and are developing the idea.  Whether the Fairy Kingdom develops its own version of The Archers or, much better still, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, remains to be seen.

FNN is most renowned for its news bulletins.  Practically everybody tunes in to the main nightly bulletin at 6.00 p.m.  But FNN does produce other programmes too covering topics as diverse as history (magical mainly and told strictly from the government's viewpoint, there are no revisionist historians here, Eileen came close to it but even she could not overcome the censorship here), gardening, educational programmes for schools and dire warnings about life on other planets type of shows.  Our planet comes in for a particular pasting.  Humans are looked down on for our polluting and warlike activities, which is understandable, but the Fairy Kingdom is reluctant to acknowledge our better, more creative side, yet alone the fact it nicks a lot of our good ideas for its own use.

Concerts are occasionally broadcast.  They are mainly pinched from our Proms season.  It is highly unlikely rock/pop will make it on the airwaves in the magical realm.  The Queen has made her disapproval very clear.

The Kingdom's proudest achievements are in the development of magic for all magical species living within it and the spreading of magical knowledge through schools, colleges and, to a certain extent, FNN.  FNN not only broadcast instructional programmes (mainly about the dangers of being over confident with magic, here The Sorcerer's Apprentice is used as a documentary), but will broadcast those unfortunates who muck their spells up big time.  Almost everybody wants to avoid being shown up like that, even most sprites, who love causing trouble.  Everyone is proud of their own magical capability and nobody wants to be shown up.

Eileen's achievements including writing several books concerning Kingdom history (she was banned from ever writing a memoir given she carried out so many missions for the Queen that would probably be best not brought into public view).  Eileen also wrote books on her views of past fairy royal behaviour.  Everyone knows she's written these but very few have read them.  One of the Queen's finest achievements has been in suppressing something that would be very embarrassing to her personally.

FNN's finest achievement was in proving an inept journalist like Roherum could front the news bulletins and endear himself to the realm at large. Naturally Roherum considers his achievements to be far higher than that.  There is no point in telling him he's wrong.  The weatherman has done so and only gets verbally abused for his pains, though Roherum believes that is what his rival is there for.

This is something the Fairy Kingdom will never "fess up" to but it carries it out anyway, claiming it is all part of its divine commission to keep an eye on certain places for the benefit of the universe as a whole.  Normally these places have residents most likely to disturb other planets (one reason why Earth was included in the package).   However the divine commission was meant to ensure the Fairy Kingdom only kept a benevolent eye over things.  It was not meant to nick ideas that it liked the look of and use them for their own purposes.  The Fairy Kingdom has a soft spot for useful machines as they can see the point of saving magical energy wherever possible.

Fairyvision, for example, is a direct lift of the idea of television.  The Fairy Kingdom has also "borrowed" the idea of radio though for some reason they couldn't be bothered to rename that.  Fairyvision's main gift to the realm it serves has been Roherum and his ideas of news journalism.  It's safe to say no serioius journalist has anything to worry about from Roherum's direction. 

The Kingdom has been at war with many other worlds in its time and, sometimes amazingly, it wasn't the aggressor.  So the realm justifies spying, when it needs to, by insisting it is a useful weapon to ensure they can protect themselves.  However the realm's main use of spying will continue to be to purloin ideas for new things and, where it is possible to make a profit out of all this, that's exactly what the Kingdom will do.  It is fair to say the Fairy Kingdom has a ruthless streak.

Each village organizes its own fete and naturally there is a lot of competition between places within a certain mileage of one another to outdo their local rivals.  It is very much akin to local football derbies.  Each town has its own library.  It is often here that villagers from one place meet other villagers from their local rivals and relationships take off.  It is understood that nobody causes any kind of trouble in a library.  The rule is if you can't talk nicely, don't bother at all.  Besides most of the librarians are capable of the kind of magic that will hurt a lot and even the most stupid imp or pixie doesn't make that mistake twice.

The Fairy News Network is the main source of home entertainment.  It aspires to be like our BBC but frankly the FNN's journalistic standards need to improve drastically.  Everyone in the Kingdom watches the nightly news bulletins partly to keep up to date with what is going on in their magical world, but mainly to see how well or otherwise Roherum, the anchorman, gets through the show and whether his chief rival, the weatherman, will finally get around to fighting Roherum on air.  This has been expected for years. To date though viewers can often hear the weatherman calling Roherum all sorts of names when he gets names wrong and so on.  Roherum gives as good as he gets and it is only because this behaviour has seemed to help the ratings, the presenter and weatherman are still in their jobs.

As well as rivalries in the Fairy Kingdom, there are friendships too, some of which would definitely not get the Queen's approval.  It is widely known that Eileen and the Chief Witch were close as children (there's not much difference in age and Eileen accepts a good witch is better than a bad fairy godmother, though the Queen doesn't share that view, she believes there are no bad fairy godmothers but that's another story).  Eileen and the Queen are well aware of the Witch's relationship to them via their mutual dodgy ancestor, Queen Gwendolyn.  Eileen sympathizes with the Witch's view that her family have been not well treated by the fairy royals.  The Queen's view is that the royal house had to focus on rectifying the damage done by Gwendolyn as much as possible for the sake of the realm's security and stability.  As a result, the Queen has no time for the Witch's injured feelings.

Hanastrew, Eileen's protege who takes over leading the fairy squad after the infamous defection, and Melanbury, L'Evallier's equally posh and noble wife, are good friends too.  This is despite the fact Melanbury loves healthy eating and eats loads of salads.  Hanastrew considers salads to be no better than rabbit food and feels you can't beat a decent slice of chocolate cake.  In fairness Hanastrew is kept so busy tackling the realm's nastier magical creatures she easily burns off every bit of cake she ever eats.  Melanbury is a little fascinated by Hanastrew's derring do attitude.  Hanastrew sees Melanbury is generally kindly (not something that could be said of every elf) and wants to break free from her traditional posh girl role of getting on with breeding heirs and at least have some kind of career first.  Hanastrew sympathizes with that.

The most damaging "friendship/rivalry" is between Stanrock (imp) and Whespy (pixie) and even they don't know whether their relationship is more good or bad.  They do urge each other into scrapes though and have managed to annoy every member of the Royal Household, which is a feat only they are proud of, and only they seem to be taken by surprise when they are exiled to Earth.  For the Kingdom it came as a relief.  In the realm's view friendships are not always a good thing.

The Fairy Kingdom is full of these.  The most potent one is between fairies (especially the specialist godmother class) and witches.  The latter think the former are responsible for the bad press concerning witches, which is true. What the witches refuse to acknowledge, according to the fairies, is that at least one their ilk did try to shove kids in an oven and that kind of behaviour is unlikely to go down well with the general public.

Dwarves and trolls have had a rivalry going back millennia but in my Fairy Kingdom dwarves are also at loggerheads with the elves.  Dwarves consider elves too much up themselves to be worth befriending.  Elves consider dwarves dirty little oiks for spending so much time underground mining.

Witches don't trust wizards either (mind it is hard to name a species witches do trust).  Wizards consider witches inferior (though it is either a brave or foolish wizard to actually say so directly to a witch given 500 years before the start of The Trouble With Mother a witch detonated a young wizard for being sexist in her presence.  This led to riots - wizards very much consider themselves the past masters at blowing things apart - and it took the intervention of the Fairy Queen's aunt, Graxia, to stop all this and calm the realm down).

The Kingdom is united on some things though.  Pixies, imps and other sprites are to be despised for being the mischief making troublemakers they are.  And Eileen should never have defected to marry a mere human male.  Eileen, in the realm's eyes, has very much let them and herself down badly here.

The Fairy Kingdom's attitude to other worlds is one of caution.  There are a number of worlds that have tried to attack the magical realm to steal its powers (the attitude to these is understandably hostile) while others the realm is meant to keep an eye on, such as Earth, tend to be looked down on.  Almost everybody in the Fairy Kingdom from the Queen downwards considers non-magical beings to be inferior, to be pitied and certainly not to be treated as equals.  Being patronizing is something that wouldn't occur to the Kingdom's inhabitants.  It is just an automatic assumption that anyone with magical skills has to be superior over someone who hasn't got them.

Humans are generally considered with contempt because the Kingdom assumes we are all guilty of polluting our planet and committing warfare whenever we get half the chance.  Eileen was one of the few to challenge that assumption but even she got nowhere in changing her old world's view.  The only reason the Kingdom has any links with Earth at all is because of its divine commission to keep a watching brief over the planet.  If there was any way out of this obligation, the Kingdom would take it but there are those even the Queen and her ilk dare not argue with!

The most obvious temptation for the higher ranked magical beings in my Fairy Kingdom (fairies, witches, wizards, elves etc) is to abuse that power especially against lower ranked magical beings (the sprites, imps, pixies etc) who enjoy riling others.  Many feel the sprites should be put in their place forcibly but there are rules as to engaging others in combat.  And the sprites know they have every right to complain directly to the Queen if they are picked on.  Also they can complain directly to the Fairy News Network who would broadcast such complaints.  It is generally believed by the higher ranks it is better to let the sprites fight things out amongst themselves.

From a writing viewpoint, the temptation is to get my characters to use magic to get them out of each and every trouble.  One great thing about the conflict between Eileen and Jenny is the former can't do this.  If anything is guaranteed to hack Jenny off in a very big way, it would be Eileen doing this.  Also Eileen is well aware she can't "magick" the problem of the Fairy Queen sticking her oar in either.

Brankaresh gave in to the biggest magical temptation of all - to use it to gain power and not to be overly fussy as to what to do to improve his magical skills.  I think it would have been unrealistic not to have at least one character be greedy, power seeking etc.  You get such creatures in all worlds - and a right pain they are too but Brankaresh's attitudes, actions and motives push The Trouble With Mother forward.

To put in far too much information (usually because I had far too much fun inventing details for my world which, in fairness, has helped me flesh out my characters but the risk is thinking I've got to put all the details in when only a few will suffice.  You want to give a flavour of the world you're creating).

To put in too much dialogue because I love writing it especially when I've got my characters well set up.  I do enjoy writing narrative, especially when it pushes the story along at a cracking rate, but my soft spot has always been for dialogue given it can be used to show character traits well (not just by what is said but in the way in which it is).

To keep writing a story when I've gone past the natural ending for it because I'm having far good a time with this tale and don't really want to end it!  Be ruthless.  I do have to kill my darlings!