God save the queen!

[cicatrix]

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your immediate failure to financially manage yourselves and also in recent years your tendency to elect incompetent Presidents of the USA and therefore not able to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up 'revocation' in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, David Cameron, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated sometime 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. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' 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 U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter 'u'' and the elimination of '-ize.' '

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4. 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 quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can't sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you're not ready to shoot grouse.

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side 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.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.)

8.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.

9. 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. New Zealand beer is also acceptable, as New Zealand is pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth - see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10. 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.

11. You will cease playing American football. There are only two kinds of proper football; one you call soccer, and rugby (dominated by the New Zealanders). 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).

12. 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 there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the Australians (World dominators) first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

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

14. 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).

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

[namrekka]

And the Dutch will get New York back?

[dilettante]

Gosh, ol' Queenie forgot about the hobbled grammar they use in the UK.

What about the "universal preposition" to they're so fond of, as we see in post after post here:

"This is different to that." ...from in civilized contries of course

"That is the same to this." ...as where we don't drool on ourselves

"I just got home to the store." ...also from but they're directionally challenged I suppose

[Shaggy Hiker]

This is pretty old. It shows up every couple years.

[FunkyDexter]

I've heard this one used:-

This is different to that

but I don't think ever heard anyone say:-

That is the same to this.
I just got home to the store

Also, men do not carry purses. Well, transvestites do but other than that purses are way out. And pants are not worn on the outside. We do not wish to see your pants.

And the Dutch will get New York back?

In principle, yes. But we're banking on them being too stoned to remember where it is.

[namrekka]

In principle, yes. But we're banking on them being too stoned to remember where it is.

Ha ha ha...lol......

[B61Nuke]

1. The letter 'U' will be reinstated in words such as 'colour,' 'favour,' 'labour' and 'neighbour.'

Thats a problem. Frankly, it just does not look right.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Also, men do not carry purses.

Seinfeld might disagree, though eventually he would come around.

And pants are not worn on the outside. We do not wish to see your pants.

That's different.

In principle, yes. But we're banking on them being too stoned to remember where it is.

Would that also mean that they'd have to give you back Run in the spice islands?

[FunkyDexter]

I'm not sure what a "back run in the spice islands" is but if the Dutch are selling it it's probably rude.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Run is an island in the Banda chain that makes up the Spice Islands. It was the sole source of Nutmeg (unless Ai and Great Banda also had some), originally. Some English trader took that island from the Netherlands, and held it, biefly against ineffectual attack, before being killed when the island fell. Similarly, the Brits took NY in the same fitful half-arsed war. For the peace negotiations, the value of Run was such that the Netherlands were very interested in adding a clause allowing any country to keep whatever land they took by conquest. Long Island was utterly trivial in value compared to Run, at that time.

Read Nathaniel's Nutmeg for a discussion of how that all came about, and why Run was so valuable. Of course, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves were all soon transplanted to other places, and the Spice Islands are now hard to even find (south of Indonesia, and administered by same, I believe).

[FunkyDexter]

Yeah we were pretty good at nicking islands of our European neighbours back in the day. Come to think of it, we were pretty good at nicking them off the indigenous people as well. I'd never heard of Run though and don't even know what war you're talking about (we had quite a few with the dutch. We let them have a navy for a while and... well... you know.. you give an inch...) but I'll have a read about it, sounds interesting.

I'm often amazed at the diplomatic deals that have cropped up in history. US history is particularly interesting in this regard. After the War of Independence gave you the thirteen colonies you pretty much purchased the rest of the continent from various European Powers in a whole bunch of diplomatic deals.

edit> Ooh, actually they nicked it if us during the First Anglo-Dutch War according to Wiikipedia. Then it was formalised after the second. You'd have thought with name like 'Run' the French would have wanted it.

[Nightwalker83]

Thats a problem. Frankly, it just does not look right.

Nothing the Brits do looks right.

[namrekka]

we had quite a few with the dutch. We let them have a navy for a while and... well... you know.. you give an inch

Lol......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michiel_de_Ruyter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_the_Medway

[FunkyDexter]

Nothing the Brits do looks right.

Ah, so you've seen us dancing then.

@Namrekka: Yeah, OK, you made us look silly once or twice but it's worth mentioning that the post reformation years saw the British Navy get the lowest amount of support from our Governement/Monarchy since Henry VIII. Most sources will cite the agreement made between Charles II and parliament on his return as the reason for this (it seriously curtailed militarty spending) but this is, of course wrong. The real reason was that we weren't at war with France. Every good Englishman knows that our only proper enemy is the French, even when they're not officially our enemy. There's no good reason for England to bother with a fleet unless it's so we can pop over the channel for a spot of Gallic pillaging.