British letting Yanks keep the tubs

[Rayman]

A Message from John Cleese (of the Monty Python fame) 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 immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, 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 aluminum, 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 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. You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen".

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 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.

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 American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. 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.

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

10. 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 catsup but with vinegar.

11. 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. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

12. 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.

13. 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).

14. 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.

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

16. 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).

17. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 PM with proper cups, never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; strawberries in season.

               John Cleese

[Brewman]

That's hilarious!  Where did you get it?

[East_TX_Spa]

And just how on Earth does this unarmed "subject" propose to enforce his wishes upon a nation of armed "citizens"?  I can make proclamations all day long about how I wish I could make machine-gun toting monkeys fly out of my butt, but it ain't gonna happen anytime soon.

Terminator

[Spatech_tuo]

Classic. I've been a Monty Python fan for years and love their sense of humor and Cleese is awesome.

I still remember the day in college where we rented the Holy Grail and had about 4 guys watch it for the first time. Two of them were rolling over laughing and two kept looking at the rest of us like we were idiots. We promptly cut off their arms and legs and left them(though they still tried to bite our legs off!).

[Rayman]

Brewman it was emailed to me today and I knew it would get a rise outta my Mentorator.  

Term, the British always find a way

Rayman

[East_TX_Spa]

Brewman it was emailed to me today and I knew it would get a rise outta my Mentorator.  

Term, the British always find a way

Rayman

Got my dander up, I tell ya!

Terminator

[drewstar]

I hate to burst your bubbles, but John Cleese didn't write that. It  was origianlly started by Alex Baxter of Rochester, UK on a usernet group. Jophn cleese usually doesn't do political satire.  It is still funny though.



And now a rebuttal:

SUBJECT: NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

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 dick. 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. Yu can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas.

P.S. — Regarding WW2: You're Welcome.

[Spatech_tuo]

Excellent retort.

[Rayman]

I hate to burst your bubbles, but John Cleese didn't write that. It  was origianlly started by Alex Baxter of Rochester, UK on a usernet group. Jophn cleese usually doesn't do political satire.  It is still funny though.


.

I will have to research my emails before I copy and paste, naaah--who cares who wrote it.  As for WW2 & America, not enough room on this forum.  here is a link
http://www.stephaniemiller.com/declarationofrevocation.htm

Rayman

[Rayman]

Another rebuttal

http://www.gadling.com/entry/1234000637060935/

and 122,000 sites

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2003-36,GGLD:en&q=%22john+cleese%22+declaration

[drewstar]

Snopes is our friend:  The internet authority on myths, legends and all the stuff that gets tossed into our inboxes.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/revocation.asp

[Rayman]

Snopes is our friend:  The internet authority on myths, legends and all the stuff that gets tossed into our inboxes.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/revocation.asp

But isn't it more fun to just believe, Snopes is evil, Santa is our friend.

Rayman

[Brewman]

I'm a strong 2nd ammendment advocate myself, but I let that part go, thinking it was all just for humor.  
I did find it funny.  But I almost commented a couple points.

[East_TX_Spa]

I'm a strong 2nd ammendment advocate myself, but I let that part go, thinking it was all just for humor.  
 I did find it funny.  But I almost commented a couple points.

Oh I know it's all fun and games.  That's the great thing about us living in America, Brewman.  I sleep well at night knowing that I'm safe from the John Cleese's of the world.

Terminator

[Brewman]

Amen, Brother!!