Given my love of all things British and my detestation of all things political, I am posting a shortened version of an email I received today that brought a smile to my face.
The United States is getting repossessed.
A Message from John Cleese
To the citizens of the United States of America:
In light of your failure 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 Colony, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:
01. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
02. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.
03. 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, and the suffix "-ize" will be replaced by the suffix "-ise".
04. Generally, you will be expected to 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.
05. You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen".
06. 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 adult enough to be independent. Guns should only be handled by adults. If you're not adult enough to sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you're not grown up enough to handle a gun. 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.
07. 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.
08. 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 South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.
09. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
10. An official from Her Majesty's Inland Revenue (i.e. tax collector) will be with you shortly to ensure the collection of all monies due (backdated to 1776). Until these are paid, there will be no representative government in the USA, in line with the policy: "No representation without taxation".
11. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm with proper cups and saucers (never mugs), and with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.
12. Some tea has gone missing, and we expect it back. We'll be searching Boston first.
God save the Queen.
John Cleese
2 comments:
This is great, but he left something out. Can't we abolish country music, too, as well as the horrible accents from down south?
:) My apologies to any southerners who come across this.
I'll need to point out your comment to David. He will certainly be in agreement on the country music thing!!
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