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 other territories (except 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:
1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.
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."
3. You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may
elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope
with correct pronunciation.
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. 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
unacceptable and inefficient form of communication
5.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."
6. You will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).
7. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be
a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England. It will be
called "Come-Uppance Day."
8. 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.
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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 immediately and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both
roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of
humour.
12. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling "gasoline") - roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.
13. 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 mayonnaise but with vinegar.
14. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with
customers.
15. 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.
16. 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.
17. 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).
18. 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.
19. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.
20. 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.
Thank you for your co-operation.
John Cleese
Monte
