Kitchen Garden Forum

BRITS REVOKE USA INDEPENDENCE: 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. 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 '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).
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.
July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.
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. 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.
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 with
immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion
tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you
understand the British sense of humour.
The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which
you have been calling gasoline)-roughly $6/US gallon.
Get used to it.
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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us
mad.

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.

Brilliant! If only it were true...

It might be one day.

Kind regards Old Herbacous.

Theres no fool like an old fool.

fantastic and such a good idea

Brilliant Allan, love it.

I have copied it onto an American site I go on. Just waiting for the fun to begin

I do believe i'm getting worse

i do believe you and oh are taking lessons from each other

Actually I got it from an American source so it is not new over there. My son is working in The States and it was sent to him, he sent it to me but in an unmanageable form so I did a Websurf on the title and got the version that I put here.
When I first read it I had to have a break halfway through, I was laughing so much that it hurt and I am not easily amused.
One must realise that they are a very mixed bunch over there, some fit in seamlessly here, others are very much the stereotype Yank etc. When we get the Official response about anything you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a pressure group saying exactly the opposite. The present example is this legislation in California to cut carbon emissions.
Allan

This is an earlier rversion .There are differences
http://www.nicklewis.org/government/not ... dependence

To start the breaking off of diplomatic relations with America we need to send the ambassador and all his staff home with two messages:
1. You can't come back until you pay all your parking fines and congestion charges.
2. You can't come back until you stop arming Israel.

Then we sent the Israelis home as well and tell them they are welcome back when they get back to their 1967 borders.

We claim to be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Why not tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism - USA and Israel?

I feel I have to respond to your last sentiments Geoff.

It is not the people of Israel or the United States of America that are suicide bombing us, their people are like the majority of us here and both believe in democracy and free speech unlike the terroist scum.

It is all very fashionable to criticise the USA but who else on this earth has secured our freedoms since the World Wars.

Perhaps I should not say God Bless America but God help us all if we did not have America.

Barney

Bout time, I say - and I'm American.

The americans replied.
"Tim Frazier's Response to Revocation of American Independence
Tim Frazier's Response to John Cleese's Letter to the USA To the citizens of the Great Britain, I obviously got your letter long after it was written. The last incompetent leader elected in the United States of America was Bill Clinton, and we did it as a joke. It was obviously a mistake and got quite out of hand. We apologize and will do our best to not let it happen again. In a successful attempt to rectify that mistake, we have twice now elected George W. Bush, who has done a fine job of clearing up the missunderstandings which resulted from the Benny Hill type antics of his predecessor. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is welcome to exercise the same amount of political power over these United States as she does anywhere else. We really don't think it will hurt anything and doubt that any of our citizens will actually notice. The Right Honourable Tony Blair, MP is welcome to come visit and give advice. We like him just fine, even if he is a labor---sorry, labour---party leader. People can be as liberal as they want as long as they jump in with us and start kicking butts when some back-woods mountain pirate in the middle east crosses the line. Here are our responses to the list of rules you sent us: 1. We looked up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. We don't care. We checked "aluminium" in the pronunciation guide. We are amazed at the fact that we invented this material yet you want to tell us how to pronounce it. We are working on a language efficiency guide for you, to demonstrate how additional unnecessary letters like "u" in many words wastes valuable computer hard drive space. I agree we took these efficiencies a little too far in the decade or two prior to Y2K but we have learned our lesson and will restrict our tendency to abbreviate to common words, not date and time stamps. We recommend you obtain a copy of the "Blue Collar TV" "Redneck Dictionary". We agree that using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. That (and many other reasons) is why we wholeheartedly support your immediate aquisition of the state of California. We won't lift a finger to stop you and only request that in return you put a very high, impenetrable fence between them and us. 2. You're right, there is no such thing as "U.S. English." Let us know when you plan to assimilate California and we will make sure we have moved the contents of Redmond to Silicon Valley prior to the aquisition. The software company you mentioned (I'm afraid to put their name in writing due to the proliferation of lawyers you pointed out) headquarted in Redmond could do with a little British intervention. 3. We don't need to learn to distinguish between English and Austrailian accents. Why would we bother when we don't listen to anything either of you say anyway? 4. Regarding your request for us to learn the words to "God Save the Queen", we have never understood why the Queen needs to be saved. Hasn't she been saved yet? It seems some Brittish gentleman should get off his keister (look up "keister" in the "Redneck Dictionary) and save her, because you've been asking God to do it for a long time and it doesn't appear He feels it's an urgent matter (neither do we, we tend to be on His side---look up "Abraham Lincoln"). 5. We'll just have to agree to disagree. You mentioned "American" football. We also believe it should just be plain ol' "football". The kevlar body armor---sorry, armour since that's what you prefer---see how inefficient that is???---is a result of the proliferation of insurance companies and lawyers. We're working on it. We have rugby, but it is played at secret locations and times to avoid insurance auditors and lawyers. We have successfully disguised it as Hockey...don't get me started on why we didn't have a hockey/American Rugby season last year, it's a whole different topic... Regarding your demand for us to stop playing basebal, the baseball team in my area shows up on game day, but apparently has stopped playing baseball, so you win that one. 6. Sure thing on the guns, just come on over and start taking them from us. You might want to bring some of that American Football kevlar body armor and a whole lot of Austrailian army buddies with you. And plan on it taking a looooong time (look up "infinity"). 7. Regarding your demand we carry nothing more dangerous than a vegetable peeler in public: like I said, we'll comply with this a soon as you've successfully achieved your goal of taking away our guns (look up "cold, dead fingers", "NRA", and "Charlton Heston"). 8. We agreed with the American Car problem a long time ago. Thats why the American car companies now own most of the Europeon car companies (look up "Jaguar is now owned by Ford". We do need help with our traffic system. We can't even get people to walk on the right side in the mall here. I think we'll outsource our traffic problems to Sweden. They have Volvos (look up "Ford owns Volvo") so they are used to designing traffic flows for heavy, powerful vehicles, not dinky underpowered British horseless carriages. 9. Belgium is a country??? I thought it was a chocalate manufacturer. 10. I can't speak to the opinions of other Americans, but you have valid points regarding beer. Guiness, however, beats anything else you have hollow. Imagine what those Scotts could do if you guys got out of their business! 11. US gas prices syncronized with UK: This is apparently already in progress. My Dodge Magnum burns $300.00 worth a month (Look up "Daimler-Chrysler" and "American Muscle Car") 12. In regards to learning to resolve problems without guns, lawyers, etc. you should become familiar with our continuim of force policies. We're working on getting rid of the lawyers and therapists and escalating straight to the guns every time in order to make the dispute processes less time consuming. 13. Who killed JFK? It's driving you crazy??? So THAT'S what happened to you guys! 14. Regarding your desire to collect taxes here back-dated to 1776, you are welcome to do that as soon as you complete your project to confiscate all our guns. You might want to get those vegetable peelers banned as well. We're funny about higher taxes and have been trained to dispatch tax collectors with common houshold items such as bananas and whiffle balls. You'd be amazed at how much damage we could do with a peeler. Sincerely, Tim Frazier President of Fraziertopia Grapevine, Texas These United States (Except California)"

Brilliant; and an American who is not only erudite but has a sense of humour I can understand!