kurtrudder.blogspot.com/2005/04/message-from-john-cleese-to-citizens.html
Sound bites, political speak, media spin, tabloid sensationalism, propaga nda and misinformation are the media's language. The media does not have a responsibility to report t he news honestly; Saturday, April 16, 2005 Message from John Cleese - To the Citizens of the United States of America I got this email the other day, just brilliant! To the Citizens of the United States of America: In light of your failure to elect a competent President of the USA thus t o govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your ind ependence, effective immediately. Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and oth er territories (excepting Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new pr ime minister, Tony Blair, will appoint a governor for America without th e need for further elections. A questionaire 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 ama zed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. The letter 'U' wil l be reinstated in will learn to spell 'doughnut' without skipping half the letters, and the suffix will be replaced by the suffix "ise." You wi ll learn that the suffix 'burgh' is pronounced 'burra'; you may elect to respell Pittsburgh as 'Pittsberg' if you find you simply can't cope wit h correct pronunciation. Generally, you will be expected to raise your v ocabulary to acceptable levels (look up "vocabulary"). Using the same tw enty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take accoun t of the reinstated letter 'u' and the elimination of "-ize." The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists sho ws that you're not adult enough to be independent. 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. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or car ry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. A permit will be req uired if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we me an. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will st art driving on the left with immediate effect. At the same time, you wil l go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the Br itish sense of humour. 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. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually b eer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to a s "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be re ferred to as "Lager." American brands will be referred to as "Near-Froze n Gnat's Urine," so that all can be sold without risk of further confusi on. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors asgood guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play En glish 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. Those of you brave enough will, in time, will be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to A merican "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twent y seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies). It is not reasonable to host an event called the "World Series" for a game which is not played outside o f America. Since only 21% of you are aware that there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. e tax collector) from Her Majesty's Go vernment will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monie s due (backdated to 1776).
We have our own, thank you very much, and they are doing a fine job of dismantling our democracy without your help. For the record, John Cleese lives in Santa Barbara, California;
The rest of the world views the US as a dangerously psychotic and petulant teenager wit h a flame thrower. If only we had the luxury of laughing at it, it would be funny. But it's not really funny when one country declares itself ex empt from international law, sets about systematically dismantling the U N, tearing up international agreements on environmental protection and a rms control, destabilising any government that gets in it's way (if not outright invading them) while propping up and tyrannical regimes that ar e convenient, and generally sets about raping the rest of the world at g unpoint.
In order to make our French fries look bleeding, we are using tomato k etchup, simply because we like to see the French suffer. I think the Que en will understand this, and hopefully allow us to keep using tomato ket chup. Since, we don't care much about English spelling in the first plac e, we can live with all the other points.
caprio : 12:02 AM Mmmh, very reasonable for a European who has only been taught Brit Englis h By the way... any possibility for Spain to get back the South Western states, the piece of sea that was once called Louisiana and Florida?
D espite being tall, and the occasional problems associated with arterial blood flow to the brain at greater heights over longer distances, John i s a very bright man. He has also been a resident of the US (and Earth) for many years, and so very likely knows that Baseball is extremely (in sanely) popular in Japan and South Korea, on Cuba, The Dominican Republi c and Jupiter's moon Io. In fact, the Japanese love baseball so much, th at they gave it their own word (with its own Kanji) instead of turning i t into something overly syllabic like be-e-ssu-baa-rru. While this colle ction of locations admittedly does not compose "The World" in the namesa ke tournament, this does comprise of more than just the Yanks. For the r ecord, a baseball game viewed in person, outdoors, is "The American Past ime." Watching it on the idiot box, however, is as annoyingly boring as Scrabble with a 4 year old and a hangover. Turn off the plasma tube and go outside with a book, your spouse, a friend, or your kids. I partly bl ame Ted Turner for this travesty of a custom. However, the focus on American spellings was the clincher showing that Cl eese was enjoying a nice glass of Port and reading Somerset Baugh or the "Illustrated History of Sigmund Freud's Jaw Cancer" when some poser (a Canadian? I can't give you chapter and verse for each Python line, but the tro upe repeatedly --often subtly and sometimes overtly-- poked fun at BRITI SH spelling.
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