John Cleese on the End of USA Independence?

People never send me stupid chain mail, but I did get one today. I thought it was pretty funny, so I decided to share. I don’t know if it’s actually from John Cleese… but it wouldn’t surprise me.

BRITISH 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 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:

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.

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.'

3.  Generally, you will be expected to raise your
vocabulary to acceptable levels (look up 'vocabulary').

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

5.  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.'

6.  You will relearn your original national anthem,
'God Save the Queen.'  July 4th will no longer be
celebrated as a holiday.

7.  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.

8.  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.

9.  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.

10.  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.

11.  All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts,
and you will start driving on the left with immediate
effect.

12.  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.

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

14.  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.

15.  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.

16.  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.

17.  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).

18.  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 world
beyond your borders, your error is understandable.

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

20.  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..

4 Comments to John Cleese on the End of USA Independence?

1. 

   Funny! Good to see after all these years the poms are still fantasizing, guess not much else left once you’re stuck with british women :)
Grooveslut on September 29th, 2006
2. 

   John Cleese had nothing to do with that message or any variation of it
   -look here: http://www.snopes.com/politics/satire/revocation.asp

   Here’s a version of the response:

   SUBJECT: NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

   To the citizens of 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. Yu can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas.

   P.S. — Regarding WW2: You’re Welcome.
Aylanshinotai on September 29th, 2006
3. 

   Ha nice. Thanks for clearing that up.
thread on September 29th, 2006
4. 

   Think this site maybe a joke?? Seriously it is, obviously few realise that which ironically strengthens the point of the petion. i dont know how good your history is, evidently not entirely up to scratch cus i seem to recall that your ancestors are all british? Or at least some, aren’t you kind of insulting urselves?
   Oh and to the overly sensitve response below, nobody in the UK believes we are a super-power, the idea that we could be is repulsive. We’d shiver to think that we were. Powerful, yes, but super-power? No way. We did that and the empire collapsed, as did the Roman Empire, German plan of expansion etc. NEVER want to be hated like that again. Looks like someone else is ready and willing to do it though.
   Have you not noticed how feeling challenged, which you are NOT because it’s a joke, step in with insults ‘yeah? we beat you at soccer!!yeah’, even insulting the aussies with ‘bad aussie soaps’ – when did they come into this? And what does ‘right-o-chum’ mean? I have never heard of this expression. By resorting to mimicing and something random about teletubies (still trying to make sense of that) you fail to realise these toddler retaliations and ‘we’re better than you’ is WHY this petition was sent, AS A JOKE, so before comin over and bombing just remember, it’s all just a piss take – tonnes of sites where we insult ourselves.
   It’s the british sense of humour. Dry and insulting – see Borat and the office, monty python etc no offense intended. But with so many ignorant, mindless comments made by you (the minority that is) is why those who hate usa, hate it.
random on September 29th, 2006