Do we really want it back?

[Bazf]

A letter from the United Kingdom Home Office to the people of America.
November 3 2004

To the citizens of the United States of America: In the light of your
failure to elect a suitable 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 will resume
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 97.85%
of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your
borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further
elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will
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:

1. You should look up revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then
look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at
just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'favour' and 'neighbour'. Skipping the letter 'U' is nothing more than laziness on your part. Likewise, you will learn to spell
'doughnut' without skipping half the letters. You will end your love affair
with the letter 'Z' (pronounced 'zed' not 'zee') and the suffix "ize" will
be replaced by the suffix "ise". You will learn that the suffix 'burgh is
pronounced 'burra' e.g. Edinburgh. You are welcome to respell Pittsburgh as
'Pittsberg' if you can't cope with correct pronunciation. 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 shouldn't have chat shows. When you learn to develop your
vocabulary then you won't have to use bad language as often.

2. 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".

3. You should learn to distinguish the 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). You will also have to
learn how to understand regional accents - Scottish dramas such as "Taggart"
will no longer be broadcast with subtitles. While we're talking about
regions, 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. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the
good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast English actors to play English
characters. British sit-coms such as "Men Behaving Badly" or "Red Dwarf"
will not be re-cast and watered down for a wishy-washy American audience who can't cope with the humour of occasional political incorrectness.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen",
but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of
football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game.
The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders
may have noticed that no one else plays American" football. You will no
longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football.
Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult
game. 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). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by
2005. You should stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an
event called the 'World Series' for a game which is not played outside
America. Since only 2.15% of you are aware that there is a world beyond
your borders, your error is understandable. Instead of baseball, you will be
allowed to play a girls' game called "rounders" which is baseball without
fancy team strip, oversized gloves, collector cards or hotdogs.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if
they give you any merde. The 97.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians
have never been the bad guys. "Mer**" is French for "****". You will no
longer be allowed to own or carry guns. You will no longer be allowed to own
or carry anything more dangerous in public than a vegetable peeler. Because
we don't believe you are sensible enough to handle potentially dangerous
items, you will require a permit if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in
public.

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a new
national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are **** 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. 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.
Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of
humour.

10. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries
are not real chips. Fries aren't even French, they are Belgian though 97.85%
of you (including the guy who discovered fries while in Europe) are not
aware of a country called Belgium. Those things you insist on calling 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.
Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.

11. As a sign of penance, 5 grams of sea salt per cup will be added to all
tea made within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, this quantity to be
doubled for tea made within the city of Boston itself.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer
at all, it is lager. From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be
referred to as "beer", and European brews of known and accepted provenance
will be referred to as "Lager". The substances formerly known as "American
Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Knat's Urine", with the
exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose Product
will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Knat'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.

13. From December 1st the UK will harmonise petrol (or "Gasoline" as you
will be permitted to keep calling it until April 1st 2005) prices with the
former USA. The UK will harmonise its prices to those of the former USA and
the Former USA will, in return, adopt UK petrol prices (roughly $6/US gallon
-get used to it).

14. 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.

15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

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 cooperation

[WillowTheWhisp]

http://www.accringtonweb.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=6623 SNAP!

[vorlon24]

That first came out around 4 years ago - and I still can't locate the reply!

[entwisi]

Strange, I normally have seen these sort of things but thats the first time I've come across that one.

Made me smirk a little too.

[Bazf]

Yes I must have missed it the first time around as well, so for all of us behind in the loop here it is again

[WillowTheWhisp]

I hadn't seen it before the first time it was posted on here and I'd love to see the reply if you ever find it vorlon.

What's wrong with Utah?

[Acrylic-bob]

And the retort: To the Citizens of the UK
TO THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND:

We welcome your concern about our electoral process. It must be exciting for you to see a real Republic in action, even if from a distance. As always we're amused by your quaint belief that you're actually a world power. The sun never sets on the British Empire! Right-o chum!

However, we regretfully have to decline your offer for intervention. On the other hand, it would be amusing to see you try to enforce your new policy (for the 96.3% of you that seem to have forgotten that you have little to no real power). After much deliberation, we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic. It seems that switching to a monarchy is in fact considered a "backwards step" by the majority of the world.

To help you rise from your current anachronistic status, we have compiled a series of helpful suggestions that we hope you adopt:

1. Realize that language is an organic structure, and that you aren't always correct in your pronunciation or spelling. Let's use your "aluminium" example. Sir Humphrey Davy (an Englishman) invented the name "aluminum" (note spelling) for the metal. However, in common usage the name evolved into "aluminium" to match the naming convention of other elements. In 1925 the United States decided to switch back to the original spelling and pronunciation of the word, at which point we dominated the aluminum industry. We'd also like to point out that the process of actually producing aluminum was developed by an American and a Frenchman (not an Englishman). However, we'd like to thank you for the Oxford English Dictionary. It's an interesting collection, considering that over 10,000 of the words in the original edition were submitted by a crazy American civil-war veteran called Dr. William Charles Minor.

2. Learn to distinguish the American and Canadian accents, and then we'll talk about the English and Australian accent issue.

3. Review your basic arithmetic. (Hint 100 - 98.85 = 1.15 and 100 - 97.85 = 2.15)

4. If you want English actors as good guys, then make your own movies. Don't rely on us for your modern popular culture. We liked "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", "Trainspotting", and "The Full Monty". We've also heard good things about this "Billy Elliot". But one good movie a year doesn't exactly make a cultural powerhouse. However, you're doing pretty well with music, so keep up the good work on that front.

5. It's inefficient to have a national anthem that changes its title whenever your monarch dies. Let's not forget that your national anthem has an extremely boring tune. We suggest switching to that Rule Brittania ditty, it's toetapping. Or maybe Elton John could adapt "Candle In The Wind" again for you guys.

6. Improve at your national sport. Football? Soccer? This just in: United States gets fourth place in men's soccer at the 2000 Summer Olympics. United Kingdom? Not even close. By the way, impressive showing at Euro 2000. You almost managed to get through the tournament without having your fans start an international incident.

7. Learn how to cook. England has some top notch candy. Salt 'n' Vinegar chips are quite yummy. However, there's a reason why the best food in your country is Indian or Chinese. Your contributions to the culinary arts are soggy beans, warm beer, and spotted ****. Perhaps when you finally realize the French aren't the spawn of Satan they'll teach you how to cook.

8. You're doing a terrible job at understanding cars. The obvious error is that you drive on the wrong side of the road. A second problem is pricing, it's cheaper to buy a car in Belgium and ship it to England than to buy a car in England. On the other hand, we like Jaguars and Aston Martins. That's why we bought the companies.

9. We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies".

Thank you for your time. You can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas.

PS: regarding WW2: You're Welcome.

[vorlon24]

That's the reply I was talking about!

A telling sign is that they referred to Euro 2000 and Billy Elliot, which came out in 2000.

[Busman747]

After that, I could almost like the yanks! Who said ALL their humour was droll, this proves that only 99% is !!

[Sparkologist]

Talking of Septics (septic tank - yank. Geddit?) and their inability to do math(s).

Half of all Americans are like Homer Simpson. The other 60% aspire to be like him!