John Cleese Letter to America

[JenT 0]

Hello all,

A friend of mine forwarded this along and I laughed out loud through it all... thought you might enjoy it if you haven't seen it already - Jen

****************************************************

John Cleese 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 (except Kansas, which she does

not fancy), as from Monday next.

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

'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."

3. 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.

4. 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 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", but only after fully carrying out

Task #1 (see above).

7. 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."

8. 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.

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 #######

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. 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.

12. The Former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which

you have been calling "gasoline") - roughly $6/US

gallon. Get used to it.

13. 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.

14. Waiters and waitresses will be trained to be more

aggressive with customers.

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 a 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.

John Cleese

Edited April 5, 2007 by JenT

[lisaf 0]

haha good read..

I've been thinking Im going mad...when Im here in the USA, my spelling is always wrong according to the computer. SO I americanize it. When I go to OZ Im always wrong for using american spelling, which I've gotten used to using. Now everything just looks plain wrong all the time.

other musings: why in America does everything come in bunches??? Bunches are for bananas and such..not " I bought a bunch of new videos....."

why is everything old????

big old house , big old dog.....

sigh, Im so confused

[Lisax 0]

!! way too funny

[Dr_LHA 3]

John Cleese didn't actually write this, and its very old (original version from just after Bush got first elected in Nov 2000 I believe), but it is still funny.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

I got that as an email in 2000 from my cousin in FL.

[MissStacey 1]

That was good. I sent it to Mel.

[arwensun1965 0]

[Jasman0717 9]

:lol: I used to watch Monty Python on the public channel back on the olden (1970s) days

[Niels Bohr 72]

[Dr_LHA 3]

:lol: I used to watch Monty Python on the public channel back on the olden (1970s) days

Yeah, as I said before, John Cleese has nothing to do with this. In fact this is the first time I've seen this email with Cleese's name attached. Just goes to show how stuff on the Internet evolves I guess.

[almaty 19]

that was funny sister jen...

[Mirorgate 0]

10 is hilarious... guess british cars suck just as much if they have to point to a German made car to prove a point.

15 is SO true though... american "beer" doesnt even to be described as such... although micro-brews are good.

[Ta Ta 1]

very funny

[JenT 0]

Who cares who it was attributed to? I generally check out authenticity of stories, etc. but this one was just plain funny.

Jen

[Mags 112]

Who cares who it was attributed to? I generally check out authenticity of stories, etc. but this one was just plain funny.

Jen

If it makes me laugh I don't mind where it came from or whether it was true or not!