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UK taking back USA. NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE
by e-mail | some time ago | Basil Fawlty (or John Cleese)

Posted on 01/18/2005 2:57:38 PM PST by anotherview

Subject: UK taking back USA
NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

by Basil Fawlty (or John Cleese)

To the citizens of the United States of America, in the 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 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:

  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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 13. From November 10th 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 US$6/gallon - get used to it).

  14. 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. 15. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

  16. 16. 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 co-operation


TOPICS: Political Humor/Cartoons; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: basilfawlty; britishhumour; fatchance; humor; johncleese; losttwice; sorelosers; sourgrapes
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To: anotherview
Roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

lol!

61 posted on 01/18/2005 4:00:42 PM PST by Cruising Speed
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To: anotherview
Some of you may not realize that this is a j-o-k-e. Main Entry: 1joke

Pronunciation: 'jOk

Function: noun

Etymology: Latin jocus; perhaps akin to Old High German gehan to say, Sanskrit yAcati he asks

1 a : something said or done to provoke laughter; especially : a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist b (1) : the humorous or ridiculous element in something (2) : an instance of jesting : KIDDING c : PRACTICAL JOKE d : LAUGHINGSTOCK

2 : something not to be taken seriously : a trifling matter -- often used in negative construction

62 posted on 01/18/2005 4:01:08 PM PST by stinkerpot65
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To: stinkerpot65
I thought this one was way better than the 2000 edition (whoever wrote that).

The bit about the guns was as much directed at Britain as it was at America.

63 posted on 01/18/2005 4:15:43 PM PST by Heatseeker ("I sort of like liberals now. They’re kind of cute when they’re shivering and afraid." - Ann Coulter)
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To: stinkerpot65

negative construction...that's digging basements, right? :)


64 posted on 01/18/2005 4:24:22 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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To: John_Wheatley
I think some people are missing the fact that this is a parody written in the language of traditional British humor. I have often said that the British keep forgetting to add the letter "z" to their words, and keep adding the letter "u" to words in which it doesn't belong. ;-)

I'll agree to many of the demands, but you good folks have to do away with the metric system. My car gets forty rods to the hogs-head and that's the way I like it.

All in good transatlantic taste,
TitansAFC (In our version of football, the PLAYERS riot)
65 posted on 01/18/2005 4:24:58 PM PST by TitansAFC (Al Gonzales for SCOTUS? Let's just nominate Arlen Specter.)
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To: anotherview
The citizens of the United States are quite aware of who Tony Blair is.

He appeared on an episode of "The Simpsons". He wore a jet pack, and he's kind of yellow.

TS

66 posted on 01/18/2005 4:29:31 PM PST by Tanniker Smith (I didn't know she was a liberal when I married her.)
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To: ABG(anybody but Gore)
And God forbid they should try and redo "Red Dwarf"!

Too smegging late.

American Dwarf
The American NBC network and Universal commissioned a pilot for a prospective American version. The character of Lister was changed to be more of a 'Han Solo' than the slob of the British version, while Holly was played by Jane Leeves who would later find fame as a castmember of the US sit-com Frasier. The 'H' on Rimmer's forehead was replaced by a silver ball and, significantly, both of the roles originally played by black actors were recast as Caucasian for fear of 'political incorrectness'
Actually made it to two pilots being produced -unlike More or Less OK (projected US version of Absolutely Fabulous)

Lest we forget Monty Python's Flying Circus was "adapted for television" by NBC

And who can forget (no matter how hard we try) Amanda's (The US version of Fawlty Towers)

67 posted on 01/18/2005 5:18:36 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (this is not a tag line)
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To: anotherview

It would be hard to take it seriously if it was real.I would like to see it.


68 posted on 01/18/2005 5:22:30 PM PST by alienken (Bumper sticker idea- We have God in heaven & a Texan in the whitehouse,LIFE IS GOOD!!)
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To: anotherview

Funny stuff! Whether he wrote it or not I could almost hear him say every word. Glad some of our American friends got the humour. I guess you'd have to have read all of it to appreciate that the sarcasm cuts both ways. Still grinning here. Thanks for the 1:40am laugh.


69 posted on 01/18/2005 5:45:46 PM PST by Forceful1
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To: anotherview

I think it's pretty funny. Let's get real, it's not as if it's about to happen.


70 posted on 01/18/2005 5:51:04 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Cicero

P.S. Just think about it a little. Exactly who is the butt of this humor? We all know that Americans wouldn't put up with this kind of arbitrary bossiness from their Lords and Masters for a minute.

But the English do. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that you need a special permit to carry a vegetable peeler in England nowadays. Just a few weeks ago a reporter told of being arrested and hauled off to jail because he was driving his car and had a penknife in his pocket.

The joke's on them, not us.


71 posted on 01/18/2005 5:56:54 PM PST by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: anotherview
Being married to a Brit, I saw the humo(u)r in this list until I got to:

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. 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.

All I've got to say is: Here are all of mine. Come and get them!
72 posted on 01/18/2005 5:57:12 PM PST by deaconjim (Freep the world!)
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To: John_Wheatley

Your point is accepted in the same vein in which it was intended.


73 posted on 01/18/2005 7:48:05 PM PST by IronJack
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To: spodefly
As long as we don't have to start eating British 'food'.

Amen.

74 posted on 01/19/2005 9:45:05 AM PST by anotherview (Part of the Palestinians' "Zionist enemy" and proud of it.)
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To: anotherview

I must admit I thought it was funny. :)


75 posted on 01/19/2005 9:51:32 AM PST by FourtySeven (47)
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To: FourtySeven

I thought it was funny. Of course I took it with a grain of salt. I do have to admit there was one joke in it that was true. Football is good. American football...


76 posted on 01/19/2005 2:43:20 PM PST by onja
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To: FourtySeven

I thought it was funny. Of course I took it with a grain of salt. I do have to admit there was one joke in it that was true. Football is good. American football...


77 posted on 01/19/2005 2:43:24 PM PST by onja
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Comment #78 Removed by Moderator

To: onja

Thank you very much - I haven't laughed like that in years. If it wasn't for the fact that so many of you are actually taking this seriously I would suggest that your responses were almost as funny as the original article. All you people have done is confirm for everyone out there that the United States of America is full of in-bred, knee-jerk reactionary, gun toting, ignorant, isolationist, redneck hillbillies!

Thanks again for the laughs!


79 posted on 04/05/2006 2:11:32 AM PDT by K76
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To: anotherview

bookmark


80 posted on 04/05/2006 2:18:02 AM PDT by GiovannaNicoletta
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