Here's one doing the email rounds, that you Americans may not be so keen on
:-BRITAIN HAS REVOKED AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE!
To the citizens of the United States of America,
In the light of your failure to elect an acceptable President of the USA
and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation
of your independence, effective today. Her 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.
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" eg.
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.
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. 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 2006. 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.
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 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.
8. 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.
9. Waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with customers.
10. 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.
11. 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 Gnat's
Urine".
12. From November 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).
13. You will hand over Mel Gibson to face charges of treason, and recently making bad films.
14. 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).