A Message from John Cleese to the citizens of the United States of America:

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for 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 (except California, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, 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.

1. 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 eliminated.

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

3. 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.

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

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 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.

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 catsup but with vinegar.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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). Don't try Rugby - the South Africans and Kiwis will thrash you, like they regularly thrash us.

13. 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 aworld beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket deliveries.

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).

16. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 pm 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.

Ha, Ha! Vince, did you write that?

What are we supposed to call moonshine??

Is it OK to put brandy in that tea swill???

Nobody killed JFK. He just moved to Cuba, to get away from Jackie.

It really breaks my heart that the palmys don't want CA.

Regarding July 4th, do a search on youtube for Tannerite.

A message to John Cleese,

I, an American of sound body and mind, have also noticed problems of my own country. I understand and agree that we do, indeed quarrel amongst ourselves.

I sir, do not agree with your remarks, to the effect that there are no adults left and we are incapable of governing ourselves. These people whom you have chosen to base your opinions on are called liberals. They have a very loud voice that is unfortunately influential to the misinformed public. These people have time to be loud. They don't have any useful skills, They are truly incompetent and lazy.

The true adults are Citizens of our Independent country, who work hard, provide avenues for justice, and don't have the time to sit around whining. The Citizens are happy with, our God, our Language, our food, and the fact that we are not the bloody ENGLISH.

If you wish to revoke our independence, you will make happy the above mentioned liberals. They are not independent, They wish not to work, but only to whine and complain. If you wish to care for these people, please send your troop ships empty. We will fill them for you, with one condition, you cannot return them.

At the same time if you wish to Revoke our independence you will invoke the true American Citizen. This said action would be ill-advised for the people of Britain and your economic state. I so not recommend you take on this task of "revoking" our independence, as which your foolishness leads you to believe that you have the right, the intelligence, and potential for success. If you return I shall share my diplomacy with you, all 165 grains of it. You took your leave before, now keep it.

P.S. The 4th of July is indeed a holiday, it is the day in which you showed you that we will gladly show the crown and it's Tories how much we care for them.

Vince wrote:

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

That would be a good price! Its more like 7.50$ USD per gallon.

Dimitri

A little history of what Vince posted is available.

Link to history of "The Revocation of Independence".

If you are exceptionally bored today. (I am.)

All a good argument jbird, but my response is quite a bit simpler.

You CANNOT revoke what you have not granted.

Mr Cleese,

Let's see if this is refined enough.

We kicked yer Azz to gain freedom, we'll kick it again if we need to.

Heck if the bloody ENGLISH try to take the US ill be glad to help my neighbors across the border to push those buggers back!

Dan