Funniest thing I've read in a while

[MrWally]

> JOHN CLEESE'S LETTER TO

AMERICA

 

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 yur co-operation

[MarcusLeCoy]

LoL. That gave me a good chuckle. Actually, I never laugh out loud at things most of the time, this did. Where did you find this?

[RoxStar]

Probably from John Cleese

 

Roundabouts are cruel. And lets take Canada too, so we can be a huge mega country.

[Mike Windu]

Heh. Nice.

[El Sitherino]

Heh, I remember this.

[MrWally]

Probably from John Cleese

 

Haha yup, 'tis. (It says it right at the top =P)

[boinga1]

"your" is mispelled at the end. Take that, you redcoats!

[TiE23]

I like the last rule.....

 

*Laugh!*

[abespam]

hilarious .. made me lol aswell

[Kurgan]

Funny, obviously, but here's the real story.

[CapNColostomy]

I was just about to post that I seriously doubted that John Cleese had written that. Because John Cleese is actually funny.

[toms]

I didn't think it was especially funny, except a few at the end... but then i read the rebuttals on Snopes.com and realised it was a work of comedy genius...

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Old but good.

Snopes got this thing, too? Geez, those guys never take a rest, do they?

[Kurgan]

A lot of the stuff like this you read on the 'net is funny (I won't say laugh out loud guffaw type funny, I mean witty), it's just that it gets diminished because the stuff gets circulated and repeated so much.

 

I can look at a boring joke online and it's no big deal, but then I print it off and show it to somebody who isn't such a net geek and they laugh. So some of us are a little more jaded.

[Ray Jones]

"Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine"

 

"... like a bunch of nancies"

 

 

 

X.D

[BongoBob]

God, the "american" responses were effin great, some of the british parts were pretty good too.