Thursday 8 November 2012

A Message from Queen Elizabeth II

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 in a proper fashion, 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 North Dakota, 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 next year to determine whether any of you have noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

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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.' You shall also be required to reinstate the second 'i' in 'Aluminium'. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up 'vocabulary').

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2. 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.'

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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. 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 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.

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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 dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater.

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11. 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). 

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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 South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

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

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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).

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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!

Thursday 1 November 2012

Fact of the Day


 
For those of you who have too much spare time on your hands and wondered where I’ve disappeared to – the answer's quite simple, and rather dull.  I’ve been hiding away at a rather splendid trivia quiz site called ‘Funtrivia’.


Feel free to venture along there and please quote my name or the following 

As a result of this new interest, I have found great pleasure in creating quizzes for the masses to answer, and in doing so have come across some interesting facts as well as some urban legends which I feel need airing as too many gullible people out there in the electronic ether seemingly believe what they read on the internet as fact.

So, let us proceed to todays so called interesting fact.

A pregnant gold fish is called a twit.

Yes, you heard me – a twit. 

A Twit!
And the only twit here would be the foolish reader who actually believes this, and yes, I’m afraid I did (hangs head in shame) but only for all of two minutes before I actually started to research this tidbit of trivia.

You see, and this really is the obvious giveaway.  Anyone who knows their fish will realise that goldfish do not carry their young - they lay eggs. This in turn is fertilised by the male and the result is a well known dating site (plenty of fish).

BUT, for those too stupid to recall this fact, a brief check on any dictionary website, or for the old-fashioned among you, a proper dictionary book, will show this supposed fact as anything but.

AND should you really wish to know, the definition of a twit is:

YOU!!!

Actually no, thats not fair -  the following definition is courtesy of the Free Dictionary


 twit  (twt)
tr.v. twit·ted, twit·ting, twits
To taunt, ridicule, or tease, especially for embarrassing mistakes or faults. See Synonyms at ridicule.
n.
1. The act or an instance of twitting.
2. A reproach, gibe, or taunt.
3. Slang A foolishly annoying person.

So there you go.  All sorted.  You can now go forth armed with the knowledge that a pregnant goldfish is NOT a twit, and more importantly, neither are you.