To the citizens of the United States of America, in light of your
failure to elect a competent President of the USA and thus to govern
yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your
independence, effective today.
Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II resumes monarchical duties
over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah,
which she does not fancy.
Your new prime minister (The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP for the
97.8% of you who have, until now, been unaware there's a world
outside your borders) will appoint a Minister for America. Congress
and the Senate are
disbanded. A questionnaire circulated next year will determine
whether any of you noticed.
To aid your transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following
rules are introduced with immediate effect:
1 . Look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Check "aluminium" in the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at
just how wrongly you pronounce it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated
in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'. Likewise you will learn
to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. Generally,
you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look
up "vocabulary." Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with
filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and
inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed." There
will be no more 'bleeps' in the Jerry Springer show. If you're not
old enough to cope with bad language then you should not have chat
shows.
2. There is no such thing as "US English." We'll let Microsoft know
on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take
account of the reinstated letter 'u'.
3. You should learn to distinguish English and Australian accents.
It really isn't that hard. English accents are not limited to
cockney, upper-class twit or Mancunian (Daphne in Frasier). Scottish
dramas such as 'Taggart' will no longer be broadcast with subtitles.
You must learn that there is no such place as Devonshire in England.
The name of the county is "Devon." If you persist in calling it
Devonshire, all American States will become "shires" e.g. Texasshire
Floridashire, Louisianashire.
4. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The
Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1.
5. You should stop playing American "football." There's only one
kind of football. What you call American "football" is not a very
good game. The 2.1% of you aware there is a world outside your
borders may have noticed no one else plays "American" football. You
should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if
you played with the girls. Those of you brave enough will, in time,
be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football",
but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or
wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). You should stop
playing baseball. It's not reasonable to host an event called
the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside of
America. Instead of baseball, you will be allowed to play a girls'!
game called "rounders," which is baseball without fancy team stripe,
oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.
6. You will no longer be allowed to own or carry guns, or anything
more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because you are
not sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous items, you need
a permit to carry a vegetable peeler.
7. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a
new national holiday. It will be called "Indecisive Day."
8. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for
your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand
what we mean. All road intersections will be replaced with
roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left. At the same
time, you will go metric without the benefit of conversion tables.
Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British
sense of humour.
9. Learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are
not real chips. Fries aren't French, they're Belgian though 97.8% of
you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not
aware of a country called Belgium. Potato chips are properly
called "crisps." Real chips are thick cut and fried in animal fat.
The traditional accompaniment to chips is beer which should be
served warm and flat.
10. The cold tasteless stuff you call beer is actually lager. Only
proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer."
Substances once known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred
to as "Near-Frozen Goat's Urine," except for the product of the
American Budweiser company which will be called "Weak Near-Frozen
Goat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for
the last 1000 years in Pilsen, Czech Republic) to be sold without
risk of confusion.
11. The UK will harmonise petrol prices (or "Gasoline," as you will
be permitted to keep calling it) for those of the former USA,
adopting UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon, get used to it).
12. Learn to resolve personal issues without guns, lawyers or
therapists. That you need many lawyers and therapists shows you're
not adult enough to be independent. If you're not adult enough to
sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist,
you're not grown up enough to handle a gun.
13. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.
14. Tax collectors from Her Majesty's Government will be with you
shortly to ensure the acquisition of all revenues due (backdated to
1776).
Thank you for your co-operation.
John Cleese [Basil Fawlty, Fawlty Towers, Torquay, Devon, England]
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02. November 2024, 00:30:12 (12:30 AM)
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