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.
(You should look
up 'revocation' in the Oxford English
Dictionary.)
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:
1. The letter 'U'
will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,'
'labour' 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').
2. 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 U.S. English. We will let
Microsoft know on your
behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker
will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter
'u'' and the elimination of
'-ize.'
3. July 4th will
no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
4. 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.
5. Therefore, you
will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more
dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit
will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in
public.
6. All
intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you
will start driving on the left side 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.
7. The former USA
will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling
gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to
it.
8. 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.
9. 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. South African 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.
10.
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.
11. 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).
12.
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 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.
13. You
must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us
mad.
14. 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).
15. Daily
Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with
saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits
(cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream)
when in season.
PS:
Only share this with
friends who have a good sense of humour (NOT
humor)!
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