a Message from John Cleese

[Gonzoie - Luclin]

A Message from John Cleese to the citizens of the United States of America

In 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 immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy).

Your new prime minister, Tony Blair, 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: You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

1. Then look up "aluminium," and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as "favour" 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").

3. 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 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 will relearn your original national anthem, God Save The Queen.

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.


5. 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 certainly not grown up enough to handle a gun.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

7. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and this is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

8. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and 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. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

9. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline") roughly $6/US gallon. Get used to it.

10. 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.

11. 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. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

12. 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.

[Tegellan]

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

Priceless, right there

[Kylere]

This is old, so old that no one has even tried to make it more relevant. But I have seenedits of this claiming to be new ( which is kind of funny in and of itself ) that mention Iraq, Bush, September 11th etc

[Boogahz]

I have the US response to it somewhere. This was old when Bush was elected.

[Boogahz]

Found it in an email I forwarded to my mom in Feb 2000, so maybe not as old as I thought:

To the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland,

We welcome your concern about our electoral process. It must be exciting for you to see a real Republic in action, even if from a distance. As always we're amused by your quaint belief that you're actually a world power. The sun never sets on the British Empire! Right-o chum!

However, we regretfully have to decline your offer for intervention. On the other hand, it would be amusing to see you try to enforce your new policy (for the 96.3% of you that seem to have forgotten that you have
little to no real power). After much deliberation, we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic. It seems that switching to a monarchy is in fact considered a "backwards step" by the majority of the world.

To help you rise from your current anachronistic status, we have compiled a series of helpful suggestions that we hope you adopt:

1. Realize that language is an organic structure, and that you aren't always correct in your pronunciation or spelling. Let's use your "aluminium" example. Sir Humphrey Davy (an Englishman) invented the name "aluminum" (note spelling) for the metal. However, in common usage the name evolved into "aluminium" to match the naming convention of other elements. In 1925 the United States decided to
switch back to the _original_ spelling and pronunciation of the word, at which point we dominated the aluminum industry.

We'd also like to point out that the process of actually producing aluminum
was developed by an American and a Frenchman (not an Englishman). However, we'd like to thank you for the Oxford English Dictionary. It's an
interesting collection, considering that over 10,000 of the words in the
original edition were submitted by a crazy American civil-war veteran called Dr. William Charles Minor.

2. Learn to distinguish the American and Canadian accents, and then we'll talk about the English and Australian accent issue.

3. Review your basic arithmetic. (Hint 100 - 98.85 = 1.15 and 100 - 97.85 = 2.15)

4. If you want English actors as good guys, then make your own movies. Don't rely on us for your modern popular culture. We liked "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", "Trainspotting", and "The Full Monty". We've also heard good things about this "Billy Elliot". But one good movie a year doesn't exactly make a cultural powerhouse. However, you're doing
pretty well with music, so keep up the good work on that front.

5. It's inefficient to have a national anthem that changes its title whenever your monarch dies. Let's not forget that your national anthem has an extremely boring tune. We suggest switching to that Rule Brittania ditty, it's toetapping. Or maybe Elton John could adapt "Candle In The Wind" again for you guys.

6. Improve at your national sport. Football? Soccer? This just in: United States gets fourth place in men's soccer at the 2000 Summer Olympics. United Kingdom? Not even close. By the way, impressive showing at Euro 2000. You almost managed to get through the tournament without having your fans start an international incident.

7. Learn how to cook. England has some top notch candy. Salt 'n' Vinegar chips are quite yummy. However, there's a reason why the best food in your country is Indian or Chinese. Your contributions to the culinary arts are soggy beans, warm beer, and spotted dick. Perhaps when you finally realize the French aren't the spawn of satan they'll teach you how
to cook.

8. You're doing a terrible job at understanding cars. The obvious error is that you drive on the wrong side of the road. A second problem is pricing, it's cheaper to buy a car in Belgium and ship it to England than to buy a car in England. On the other hand, we like Jaguars and Aston Martins. That's why we bought the companies.

9. We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies".

Thank you for your time. You can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas.

P.S. Regarding WW2: You're Welcome.

[Aslanna]

Fuck roundabouts!

[Chidoro]

holy shit, john cleese really wrote that?

fascinating

not the post, but rather, your stupidity

fucking luclin

[Zaelath]

Fuck roundabouts!

Roundabouts beat the shit out of 4-way stops, you freaks!

[Boogahz]

Fuck roundabouts!

Roundabouts beat the shit out of 4-way stops, you freaks!

In the number of accidents maybe!

[Zygar]

Nope, didn't write it.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/revocation.asp

[Zaelath]

Fuck roundabouts!

Roundabouts beat the shit out of 4-way stops, you freaks!

In the number of accidents maybe!

Yeah, they require sensible yielding without being a nervous nancy, I can imagine Yanks would have trouble with them. Never seen an accident on one here; far, far, more at traffic lights

[Toshira]

A Message from John Cleese to the citizens of the United States of America

3. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler. Noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication.

Apparently noises is singular? I call teh FAKEZ!

[Leonaerd]

It ended funnily enough.

On the other hand, we like Jaguars and Aston Martins. That's why we bought the companies.

9. We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies".

[Niffoni]

I thought Dennis Miller and Robin Williams wrote that!!

I will never understand why every half-literate class-clown with a high opinion of his own satirical skill feels the need to circulate shit like this with famous people's names attached to it to give it more weight.

By the way, the above is a direct quote from Madonna, PASS IT ON!

[Sylvus]

Madonna is like a hundred years old but i still fantasize about her from time-to-time.

I can't help it, I was like 13 when the "Vogue" video came out.

[Canelek]

Fuck roundabouts!

Roundabouts beat the shit out of 4-way stops, you freaks!

In the number of accidents maybe!

Yeah, they require sensible yielding without being a nervous nancy, I can imagine Yanks would have trouble with them. Never seen an accident on one here; far, far, more at traffic lights

I like roundabouts for the most part, especially when folks decide to go left...

However, most drivers are fucking idiots--4-way stops, roundabouts, straight roads, back roads, etc.--so it really does not matter much.

[Leonaerd]

What I hate is when I'm in the lane behind a dolt who is unaccustomed to (or simply afraid of) roundabouts. Waiting an extraspeciallovely 10 seconds to get a chance to make my go-around is great.