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

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 Kansas, 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',
'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').

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 M*crosoft
know on your behalf. The M*crosoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take
into account 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 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been
calling gasoline) of roughly $10/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. South African beer is also acceptable as they are pound for
pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the
beer. They are also part of 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.

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 there is a world beyond your
borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will
let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their
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!

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest! if you must; but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up, though the pace seems slow;
You might succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out;
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt;
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit;
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

- by anonymous

Once upon a time in a place overrun with monkeys, a man
appeared and announced to the villagers that he would
buy monkeys for $10 each.

The villagers, seeing that there were many monkeys
around, went out to the forest, and started catching them.
The man bought thousands at $10 and as supply started
to diminish, they became harder to catch, so the villagers
stopped their effort.

The man then announced that he would now pay $20 for
each one. This renewed the efforts of the villagers and
they started catching monkeys again. But soon the supply
diminished even further and they were ever harder to
catch, so people started going back to their farms and forgot
about monkey catching.

The man increased his price to $25 each and the supply
of monkeys became so sparse that it was an effort to even
see a monkey, much less catch one.

The man now announced that he would buy monkeys for
$50! However, since he had to go to the city on some
business, his assistant would now buy on his behalf. While
the man was away the assistant told the villagers: "Look
at all these monkeys in the big cage that the man has bought.
I will sell them to you at $35 each and when the man
returns from the city, you can sell them to him for $50
each."

The villagers rounded up all their savings and bought all the monkeys.
However, they never saw the man nor his assistant again and once again there
were monkeys everywhere.
Now you have a better understanding of how the stock
market works!

Last time when I laugh out loud was the day when my 4 years old then daughter learned what politics is all about. It was the 30th of September, just a day after her birthday. She came and asked me "dad, what is POLITICS?".
I said 'Well dear, let me try to explain it this way:
I am the head of the family, so call me The President.
Your mother is the administrator of the money, so we call her the Government.
We are here to take care of your needs, so we will call you the People.
The nanny, we will consider her the Working Class.
And your 2 years old baby brother, we will call him the Future.
Now think about that and see if it makes sense.'
So the little sweet goes off to bed thinking about what I had said.
Later that night, she hears her baby brother crying, so she gets up to check on him.
She finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper.
So the little Eliza comes to our room and finds her mother asleep. Not wanting to wake her, she goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, she peeks in the keyhole and considers its not the best moment to knock. She gives up and goes back to bed.
The next morning, my sweetheart comes to me, 'Tudor, I think I understand the concept of politics now.'
I am saying, 'Good, darling, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about.'
She then replies, 'The President is screwing the Working Class while the Government is sound asleep. The People are being ignored and the Future is in deep shit.'