A Letter to America

[Bruce Rioja]

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 other 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:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then
look up "aluminium," and 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 'colour', '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."

You will learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may elect
to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope with
correct pronunciation.

Generally, you will be expected to 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.

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 will relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen",
but only after fully carrying out Task #1 (see above).

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. November 2nd will be
a new national holiday, but to be celebrated only in England. It will be
called "Come-Uppance Day."

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 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.
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 immediately and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both
roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of
humour.

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

9. 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 mayonnaise but with vinegar.

10. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more aggressive with
customers.

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.

13. You will cease playing American "football." There is only one kind of
proper football; you call it "soccer." Those of you brave enough will, in
time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to
American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty
seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).
Further, you will 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 2.1% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your
borders, your error is understandable.

14. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad.

15. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty's
Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies
due backdated to 1776.

Thank you for your co-operation.

[blurred]

The oldies are the goodies

[Bruce Rioja]

The oldies are the goodies

Not entirely true. As mentioned elsewhere, old Shilton the lad carried on until he was about 46 and he was bleedin' shite!

[runningonbravado]

it was alleged that john cleese wrote that, but it was just a rumour

[jmjhb]

Tony Blair shouldn't be in power. Anywhere.

[thebish]

I'll join in with all the anti-blair criticism - but he did win an election quiet convincingly just a wee while ago... fair-do's 'n all...

[superjohnmcginlay]

I'll join in with all the anti-blair criticism - but he did win an election quiet convincingly just a wee while ago... fair-do's 'n all...

The last one wasnt particularly convincing.

[InsaneApache]

As Tony and his corrupt mateys got in on 36% of the votes cast, hardly resounding in anyones books.

[thebish]

"convincing" is relative...

it was convincing enough (majority of 66) for the queen to invite him to assemble a cabinet... (not the Ikea type - though that would have been entertaining!!)

[superjohnmcginlay]

"convincing" is relative...

it was convincing enough (majority of 66) for the queen to invite him to assemble a cabinet... (not the Ikea type - though that would have been entertaining!!)

See Insane's answer above, from what I remember the conservatives actually got the higher percentage of votes in England. The jocks would vote for a monkey if it had a red rossette on.

[Little Green Man]

"convincing" is relative...

it was convincing enough (majority of 66) for the queen to invite him to assemble a cabinet... (not the Ikea type - though that would have been entertaining!!)

See Insane's answer above, from what I remember the conservatives actually got the higher percentage of votes in England. The jocks would vote for a monkey if it had a red rossette on.

Not entirely true - Labour only have 50 out of 129 seats in the Scottish parliament - 39%. I don't think all the other 61% the voting population of Scotland are incomers like myself.

[thebish]

you can only compete under the rules set out..

it would be like Citeh claiming that they had actually beaten us last season when they hit the woodwork 20 times - because that should have counted for something...

the system we have is the system we have (and no democratic system is without its considerable flaws) - and it's a darn site better than the democratic shambles that is the American system...

so - a 66 majority is a 66 majority - and constitutes a "right" to be in power...

(that's all - I'm not out to defend blair - just to question your rather bold statement - "Tony Blair shouldn't be in power. Anywhere.")

[superjohnmcginlay]

you can only compete under the rules set out..

it would be like Citeh claiming that they had actually beaten us last season when they hit the woodwork 20 times - because that should have counted for something...

the system we have is the system we have (and no democratic system is without its considerable flaws) - and it's a darn site better than the democratic shambles that is the American system...

so - a 66 majority is a 66 majority - and constitutes a "right" to be in power...

(that's all - I'm not out to defend blair - just to question your rather bold statement - "Tony Blair shouldn't be in power. Anywhere.")

Im not disagreeing with any of that and it wasnt my statment. Im just disgreeing with the convincing bit, even more so now Little Green Man has pointed out the Jock side of it.

[thebish]

(I mis-typed it as "quiet"!) - but I said it was quite convincing - and I merely meant the size of the commons majority - 66 - which is a decent majority (though not a "landslide")

the 2005 election, though, screams out for some kind of electoral reform... (not easy - but surely it needs to be adressed..)

labour won 365 seats - at 26,877 votes per seat
tories won 197 seats - at 44,521 votes per seat
libdems won 62 seats - at 96,378 votes per seat

part of the problem is that it makes no difference oif you win a seat with a majority of 1 or 25,001 - it's still only one seat.

but our system puts a high value on local representation - therein lies a conundrum...

governments have won majorities with only a third or less than one third of the electorate: (some of this is due to alarming fals in the turnout..)

1979 Conservative 33.3
1992 Conservative 32.6
1987 Conservative 31.8
1997 Labour 30.9
1983 Conservative 30.8
1974 Labour 28.6
1922 Conservative 26.0
2001 Labour 24.2
2005 Labour 21.6


quite what the answer is though, I don't know!

[Bwfc in the bloodline]

(I mis-typed it as "quiet"!) - but I said it was quite convincing - and I merely meant the size of the commons majority - 66 - which is a decent majority (though not a "landslide")

the 2005 election, though, screams out for some kind of electoral reform... (not easy - but surely it needs to be adressed..)

labour won 365 seats - at 26,877 votes per seat
tories won 197 seats - at 44,521 votes per seat
libdems won 62 seats - at 96,378 votes per seat

part of the problem is that it makes no difference oif you win a seat with a majority of 1 or 25,001 - it's still only one seat.

but our system puts a high value on local representation - therein lies a conundrum...

governments have won majorities with only a third or less than one third of the electorate: (some of this is due to alarming fals in the turnout..)

1979 Conservative 33.3
1992 Conservative 32.6
1987 Conservative 31.8
1997 Labour 30.9
1983 Conservative 30.8
1974 Labour 28.6
1922 Conservative 26.0
2001 Labour 24.2
2005 Labour 21.6


quite what the answer is though, I don't know!

Its alarming that so few people vote, i think locally they cant see a change, I live in Tonge Moor, and ever since i have lkived there nothing has changed, except for in the last few years we have seen some regeneration grants, (predominantly non-white communities got regeneration much sooner) But they come from the European Union nothing to do with Labour or Cons?

I vote and continue to vote at every election, I have never seen anyone else at the voting station EVER. And ive been eligable to vote for nearly 5 years.

[thebish]

here's the bottom of the turnout league table in the last century...

1974 72.8
1945 72.7
1983 72.7
1970 72.0
1997 71.5
1922 71.3
1935 71.2
1923 70.8
2005 61.3
2001 59.4
1918 58.9


1918 doesn't really count (for obvious reasons) - but turnout did slightly increase for 2005 over 2001. But the fact that we seem to have dropped to about three-fifths is worrying - and I'll bet it's more worrying if you break it down by age...

[thebish]

and another thing...

three MP's were elected this time with less than one fifth of the vote..

George Galloway Bethnal Green & Bow Respect 18.4%
Roger Godsiff Birmingham Sparkbrook & SH Labour 18.7%
Ann McKechin Glasgow North Labour 19.9%

[superjohnmcginlay]

[thebish]

have you got the appropriate electoral mandate to declare that?

[Bwfc in the bloodline]

here's the bottom of the turnout league table in the last century...

1974 72.8
1945 72.7
1983 72.7
1970 72.0
1997 71.5
1922 71.3
1935 71.2
1923 70.8
2005 61.3
2001 59.4
1918 58.9


1918 doesn't really count (for obvious reasons) - but turnout did slightly increase for 2005 over 2001. But the fact that we seem to have dropped to about three-fifths is worrying - and I'll bet it's more worrying if you break it down by age...

If you broke it down by age id suggest there are some very large holes in there. For instance my Gran has never missed a vote in her life, my mum has missed maybe two or three. I vote everytime, but im an acception at 22 yr old. I know alot of people my age and NONE of them voted not one. I have yet to meet someone of similar age to me who has ever voted.