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:
Home Office (London, UK) to the People of America
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:
· You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English
Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide.
You will be amazed at 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.
· 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 should learn to distinguish the British and Australian
accents. It really isn't that hard. British 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.
· Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as
the good guys. Hollywood will be required to cast British actors to play
British 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.
· 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.
· 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.
· 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.
· July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 2nd will be a
new national holiday, but only in Britain. It will be called "Indecisive
Day".
· 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.
· 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.
· 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.
· 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 Ceské Budejovicé
a.k.a. Budweis, Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.
· 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).
· 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.
· 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.