When there aren’t dragons and foul fiends to be got rid of quickly (which means calling in Eileen, Hanastrew or the fairy squad), most settlements arrange their evening entertainment based on the tastes of the majority species living in the place.  

These entertainments take place outside during the spring and summer, in the Village Hall the rest of the year, and all who are able are expected to take part.  Shyness here is not tolerated.  It doesn’t matter whether you sing quietly or loudly, what matters is you sing.  To be fair, given all in the Kingdom know these traditions, shyness generally isn’t a problem.  It’s not given a chance to develop into one!

Entertainments are held thrice weekly.  Whilst not compulsory to go to them all, most do and only being ill is considered a good enough excuse to skip attendance.  The entertainments usually involve singing, dancing, acting, recitals, and sports like football, cricket, rounders, anything team related as that gets as many of the village involved as possible.  The entertainments are usually great fun and very noisy.  And from the government’s point of view, they’re useful - the villages are not causing trouble for them.

Villages group together (in groups of five) annually for their summer carnival where all species takes part.  These are arranged throughout the season so the Queen and/or Eileen can attend them.  A lot of drinking takes place and that’s just by the organizing committees! 

There are floats, on the theme of fairy tales and nursery rhymes, but you can get the Kingdom’s equivalent of an “avant garde” float based on the theme of how horrible humanity is, which always goes well.  There’s nothing like condemning an alien life form to bring magical beings together in a spirit of unity. 

Fairy tales and nursery rhymes must be re-enacted regularly in the magical world to keep the stories “alive”.  Once the carnivals are over for the year, there’s a lot of competitiveness to see which group of villages got the best coverage on FNN and which royal seemed to enjoy which festival most. 

The debates from this keep FNN and the press going for material for months.  This material ranges from nice to poisonous.  The disappointment of those who didn’t get on the organizing committees or felt their carnival didn’t get enough attention can be physically felt by all magical beings for over twenty miles! But this too is considered great entertainment as it gives everyone plenty to talk about.  (Eileen welcomes it too, it means people aren't talking about her defection). There is also fun to be had speculating as to who will make it on to the committees months before the actual events.  It is not unknown for bets to be placed on this but officially this doesn't happen, officially the Queen is blissfully unaware of this going on but Her Majesty has been known to have the odd flutter on the quiet herself.

Sicknesses do occur in the Kingdom but it’s usually due to magical abuse - you can have too many spells going through your system at once, any one of which could prove fatal and that's even when they're not designed to kill.  Different magical species have varying levels of tolerance to spells and, as in most species, the youngest and eldest are the most prone to suffering the worst side effects.  Also curse victims, even when rescued from being toads, frogs etc, tend to need a long period of quiet readjustment and even then a sudden shock can bring on violent attacks of croaking. 

Biggest cause of death is getting the wrong side of a witch, a wizard or a fairy in a really bad mood (usually Eileen).  Second biggest cause of death are dragons and associated monsters (there has been whimsical talk about the brutes forming their own trade union - Beasts Against Vegetarianism!). 

The Queen and Eileen have been known to put all their own powers through themselves in one go when they’ve needed the energy from this to carry out a very special charm but doing this leaves them drained for ages and so they don’t do this often.  The thought of leaving the Kingdom in the charge of the Council makes the Queen shudder.  She doesn’t like the thought they could manage without her.  Her one comfort is most royals in most dimensions feel much the same way.

The fairy squad, set up by Eileen, practices in the Palace grounds, well away from where the rest of the Household relaxes during off duty times.  Eileen set up a force field around the practice area which the Queen has since reinforced (yes, Eileen does know and yes, she’s livid about it - she loathes having her abilities questioned but is aware the monarch would happily make an issue out of this by telling Eileen to come back and fix it if she’s that unhappy). 

Having said that the squad have got used to having Household members stand outside the force field to watch the squad at work.  Applause has been known.  New squad members run the gauntlet of mocking laughter when they foul up.  Hanastrew has made no attempt to stop that.  She calls it character forming.  The newer squad members call it something else! 

The squad as a whole doesn’t really like being entertainment for the staff, every so often they send a spell “wide” so it bounces off the force field.  This give the squad a chance to have a laugh as they see those Household members not aware the squad do this jump out of their skins.

The squad practice sessions include setting up fake battles and Hanastrew and her team destroying these using various spells depending on what skill they’re working on.  Hanastrew sets theory papers, based on ones Eileen set her. The squad prefers the practical sessions.  It’s more fun making something explode with a suitable charm than writing down your theories about what you’d do in certain situations. 

Magical Ethics is not a popular subject as everybody in the Kingdom knows they’ve used magic in dodgy situations or to achieve things they should’ve used more honourable  means to get.  Having to sit a paper on Magical Ethics brings on bad consciences! For the evil side of the Kingdom, Magical Ethics is a waste of time. This causes resentment amongst the good guys. Why can’t they just get on with their job and send the evil ones to the next world? Why must paperwork get in the way?  But Queen and Council see the Magical Ethics papers as a way of gauging mental states.  Anyone writing they “want to blitz communities apart ASAP regardless of what said community has done” or show prejudices will be getting a visit from the authorities PDQ. 

Eileen loathes the paper.  She sees it as a form of government interference which doesn’t achieve anything useful.  She has no problem with the interference - it’s the lack of practical gain that gets her goat. After all everyone writes down what they think the government wants them to write!

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.   The only reason anybody knows about Eileen's queries is that Eileen has a loud mouth and she is not the type to be silenced.  (The Queen is also aware that ignoring Eileen on this will aggravate her cousin but it's easier to live with an annoyed relative than answer said annoyed relative's awkward questions).

The sciences as we know them are of little interest in a magical world.  Alchemy is despised.  The nearest science studied is natural history and that’s only done by the likes of Fresdian (Rose) who’s considered an eccentric.  There’s a wariness of science as practiced on earth as the Queen and her Council are aware it is science that leads to mankind making new discoveries, some of which the magical realm don’t want them to find out as it could lead to humans finding their world. 

Every so often humans are “enabled” to find, say, a new planet so they’re busy investigating that if the magical worlds thinks humans are getting too close.  Accurate measurements are a must for the potion makers.  And there is an awareness of the need for a great deal of distance when casting an explosive charm between the caster and the being/thing it’s aimed at.  But that’s more common sense that mathematics or the acceptance of every action causes an equal and opposite reaction.

Dragons are magically dependent on the support of a witch or wizard to survive long term in the Kingdom, though one of them had the foresight to realize if they could grab someone with fairy blood (Jenny), transform them and then mate with them, the offspring could become magically independent.  This is what passes for genetic modification in the magical realm and Jenny understandably was not impressed by the idea. 

It is a major part of the fairy squad’s duty to combat rogue dragons and to keep an eye on those living quietly to make sure they keep on doing that and nothing more.  Every so often the Queen and her Council will “throw out” discoveries for humans to make, like the finding of a new planet, to ensure they don’t come too close to finding their realm.  Everybody in the Kingdom thinks humans would try to exploit magical power for their own ends if they were to find the magical realm.  Nobody in the Kingdom believes humans would resist the temptation to try to colonize the Fairy Kingdom.  Sadly they’re right.

Most of the mythical beasts stay away from the settlements and the dimension barriers leading to other worlds and with very good reason.  Humans hunt them.  Fairies hunt them.  Witches hunt them.  Wizards hunt them.  Okay there are different reasons - the fairies generally “hunt” them to monitor numbers and study the creatures but they’re not impressed and prefer to be left well alone.  They would consider the likes of our David Attenborough nothing more than a peeping tom!!! 

Having said that Wandarox, Hanastrew’s deputy, is a magnificent artist and her most celebrated portraits are of the unicorns, centaurs and other creatures, showing them at their best - in the wild, living life as they want to live it.  Witches and wizards tend to hunt the creatures to extract blood, skin, hair etc for various spells and charms and they’re usually not fussy just how they do this.  It is possible to extract these things without damaging the creatures - the darker side of the magical world never bothers.  They want it.  They get it.  They don’t bother with the gentle approach.  For them it is always simpler to kill - sadly they take the same attitude to opposing magical forces and humans.