Rule Britannia

seaeagle · Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 1:55 am Post subject: Rule Britannia

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour', 'favour' and 'neighbour.' Likewise, you will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix '-ize' will be replaced by the suffix '-ise'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as US English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take account of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of -ize.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you're not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

8. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

9. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with ketchup but with vinegar.

10. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. Australian beer is also acceptable as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting Nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

11.Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

12. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body Armour like a bunch of nancies). Don't try Rugby - the Australians and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America . Since only 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God save the Queen.

Werebo · Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 2:35 am Post subject:

Well, I'd definitely vote for #2 on that list Wink

I think there should be a proviso that we won't drag the USA into the EEC though, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy Laughing

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5427

This one's been around for a while in various incarnations, at one point even mistakenly attributed to John Cleese. I like some of the rebuttals, too:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/revocation.asp
Especially this one:

Werebo · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:29 am Post subject:

I'll happily apologise for 'Teletubbies', they're among the top biggest waste of TV airspace going - How to teach your child to make stupid unintelligible noises, in one easy lesson....

OK then, that's done, who did shoot JFK?

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5427

Fair enough - it was the Men In Black - he knew too much, so they hid him away and made us all think he was shot.

louis-the-cat · Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 307

men in black!!! Cool

so let me get this straight.....the MIB's have a hide-away somewhere where JFK, OSB and the King are all sharing a kitchen Question

Even Teletubbies make more sense than this.

Werebo · Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 3:03 pm Post subject:

So the rumour that he was living in a B52 bomber on the moon, along with Elvis, is false then.

Righto Xavierx, thanks for the clarification

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5427

vivdora · Joined: Jul 11, 2008 Posts: 1

Brilliant but be warned the violence is on the up over here! Don't forget pants are what you wear under your trousers and if you want to go up a floor please take the lift.
Please pronounce the word route as root and not rout, thanks awfully! Very Happy

seaeagle

Just a question for any Poms who might be reading this.

When you walk into a building from street level, do you normally walk in on the ground floor & then catch a lift up to the first floor like we do down here? Or do you walk in on the first floor & catch a lift up to the 2nd floor like the Americans do?

Do Americans even have ground floors in their buildings?

Just curiosity from an ignorant Antipodean Very Happy

louis-the-cat · Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 307

It's a funny old world.

Poms ( quaint) enter buildings onto the "ground floor", the "1st Floor" is one floor up from that. The top floor on a 3 storey building is therefore the 2nd floor.

How does it work in the Southern Hemisphere where everything is upside down? Rolling Eyes

Werebo

(Sorry, I couldn't resist it

)

seaeagle

xavierx · Joined: Nov 06, 2004 Posts: 5427

We have ground floors here - we call that the first floor, because it's the first one above ground.

Actually, if we were to make any sense of this, the very bottom floor of a building should be the 1st floor, even if it happens to be underground. So, if a building has a 3 story parking garage underground, like one I have to go to in DC, then the "ground" floor should be the 4th floor!