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| Subject: A letter from the British Home Office to the People of America | |
Author: Davey Blunkett | [ Next Thread |
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] Date Posted: 18:34:35 11/15/04 Mon 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 monarchial 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 of 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. "Merde" is French for "shit". 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 crap 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. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
| [> Subject: ROFLMAO | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:44:00 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: Hm. | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:44:03 11/15/04 Mon A French mate of mine sent me this a few days ago. It is evidently 'doing the rounds', like that thing where you go to Google and type in "weapons of mass destruction" and click 'I'm feeling lucky' and get taken to that funny page. I think that's still up and running, if there is anyone in the world who hasn't yet tried it. I have but two arguments with it: 1) There is a place called "Devonshire", as in the Duke of Devonshire, HMS Devonshire, and Devonshire Cream Teas. Calling it 'Devon' is a modern affectation by the west-country bumkins who run the Council, who are too addled with cider to spell "shire" at the end of their county's name, involving, as it does, a particularly tricky combination of letters. 2) Why on Earth do Americans seem to think that we use the metric system? I know that this horse has been flogged dead elsewhere on this forum, but Yanks come over here and see miles on the roadsigns and buy pints and can tell people their heights in feet and inches and weights in pounds and everyone knows what they're talking about, and still they go home and say, "Hey, Billy-Bob-Joe, that metric system sure is awful quaint." [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: you don't mean they will get to vote in serious elections, do you? | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:48:02 11/15/04 Mon Maybe we should wait until they have handed in their guns, sacked their therapists and lawyers, learned how to spell, etc, before we let them in? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: "Learned"? What's that? Do you mean "learnt"? :P | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:50:06 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: the Macquarie dictionary says the two are the same | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:39:46 11/15/04 Mon pardon my antipodean ignorance if that does not hold in other realms [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Learned | |
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Author: A [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:31:47 11/15/04 Mon I think it's alright if you talk of someone being "learned" (pronounced "lurn-ed" rather than "lurnd"). [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: Yes but... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:36:06 11/15/04 Mon ... the former is the supine and the latter is the past participle. I know that in most cases they are the same in the English language ('He was tired' and 'running tired him', for example), but this is one of the exceptions. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: Heh, they can use the *real* imperial system instead | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 18:49:01 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: This joke originates from the previous US election (Florida Fiasco). | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:54:42 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: American baseball and cold beer | |
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Author: Michael J. Smith (Canada) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:11:27 11/15/04 Mon I like both. And for all those Brits that don't think American baseball is played outside their borders, I invite you to come to Toronto to see a Blue Jays game. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: baseball | |
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Author: Joel (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:34:37 11/15/04 Mon I went to a baseball game last year when i went on holiday and it was the most boring thing I have ever seen. Even the Americans seemed to realise the same because about 2 thirds were always up, moving, getting snacks, or talking on their mobiles. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: I watched in Canada for a while and they never hit the ball! | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:35:48 11/15/04 Mon [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: they also play it in Cuba, Venezuela and Japan | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 23:32:09 11/15/04 Mon and I have nothing against refering to a nice cold lager as a beer. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: good stuff | |
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Author: Kevin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 01:55:02 11/16/04 Tue lol that was funny. It was right on a lot of things. I tell my friends all the time that American football is a girls sport, and that they should play rugby instead. Then they call football a girls sport, until they try, and they can't last 15 minutes of the game [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: I am sorry Brits, but I tried room-temperature beer and I found it awful. I like it cold. However, I like everything else British. | |
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Author: Jim (Canada) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:18:42 11/16/04 Tue [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Beer | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:24:43 11/16/04 Tue It should be pleasantly cool but not chilled... say, a nice 45-50 degrees. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Room temperature beer! | |
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Author: Paddy (Sotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 19:52:37 11/16/04 Tue The British do not drink room temperature beer! Most British beer, like Guinness, has been brewed for centuaries to taste at its best at cellar temperature, usually a small number of degrees below room temperature. Publicans that sell room-temp beer (and those that sell just-above-freezing point larger-beers too) take no pride in their jobs and should have their licences revoked. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: depends on what temperature your room is, of course | |
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Author: Ian (Australia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 21:44:22 11/16/04 Tue I remember being told that red wine should never be served chilled, always at room temperature. Yeah, right, when your room is at 39 degrees Celsius? [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Uhuh | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 22:40:52 11/16/04 Tue I expect that the rule about not chilling vino rosso probably predates the existence of substantial wine drinking populations outside Southern Europe, where the temperature is seldom more than 80-90 degrees. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> Subject: guinness | |
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Author: Kevin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 01:28:52 11/18/04 Thu I believe Guinness is from Ireland [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Guiness? | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:51:02 11/18/04 Thu Not that I ever drink the much, as it is foul in the extreme, being essentially a species of alcoholic mud, but I was under the impression that Guiness is just an Irish company which makes stout, which is a British thing. Not that it matters, as Guiness is a global thing these days. One of my ambitions in the near future is to do the Inca trail from Lima to Machu Pichu, but I suspect that when I get to the summit I will find amongst the Inca ruins a MacDonalds, a Starbucks, and an Irish theme pub with posters of cheery Irishmen holding up pints of Guiness. Ditto trekking in Nepal and reaching the summit of Everest. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Stout | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:59:44 11/18/04 Thu I believe the Irish invented stout, but this itself was a breed of the English porter... It may be a global brand, but it certainly does not taste the same. I like proper Guiness, but the chilled stuff you get here isn't very good. It's a good source of iron you know ;-) [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: A good source of iron? | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:39:30 11/18/04 Thu So are the Derbyshire Dales, but I'm not eating them. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> [> [> Subject: I know which I'd rather have in my pintglass ;-) | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:16:23 11/18/04 Thu [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> [> Subject: Global Branding | |
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Author: Dave (UK) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:49:01 11/18/04 Thu Talking of Starbucks, don't they have joint franchises with Conservative Central Offices these days? Extra shot of Conservatism to go please... [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> [> [> Subject: Guiness | |
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Author: Paddy (Scotland) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 15:44:16 11/18/04 Thu Irish beer does not taste any different from british beer and Guinness was created when Ireland and Britain were one and the same thing. Also, Guinness is owned by Diageo, a British company, to which all of the profits go. I find it very amusing to see on St. Patrick's day in Boston all of these "Irishmen" (actually they are all Eastern-Europeans masquerading as Irishmen in the hope of fitting in better) drinking themselves silly on Guinness only for the profits to go back to London! [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: How about another letter revoking the Statute of Westminster? | |
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Author: Jim (Canada) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 14:26:01 11/16/04 Tue [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> Subject: huh? What's that? | |
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Author: kevin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 06:36:21 11/19/04 Fri [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: ... | |
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Author: Ed Harris (Venezia) [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 12:40:39 11/19/04 Fri That would be the 1931 (is that right) statute which came out of the Imperial Conference, which opened the way for the fragmentation of the Empire by giving full autonomy as separate countries "within the Empire" to the five parts of the British Empire which were inhabited by British people - the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. Only New Zealand really didn't want it, and went along just because they didn't want to show imperial disunity - something of an irony, there, I think. "Yeah, let's go along with this policy which institutionalised imperial disunity, so as not to cause imperial disunity." Still, there you go. I believe that the previous Statue of Westinster was an Act of the 1760s which tolerated and gave rights to French Catholics living in British North America. This did not go down well with the puritan-leaning protestants who inhabited a certain thirteen colonies to the south, and added to dossier of grievances which the colonial assemblies were already compiling against Parliament. Still, serves us right for oppressing people, I suppose. [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |
| [> [> Subject: Indeed | |
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Author: Roberdin [ Edit | View ] |
Date Posted: 16:17:56 11/22/04 Mon Yes, that is the correct date. If you're bored, you may read the full text of the Statute here, but beware that it is written in a form of English that will not suffer fools gladly: Statute of Westminster, 1931 [ Post a Reply to This Message ] |