Oh yeah, this made the rounds a few years back. Is it really by John Cleese? It doesn't look like his sort of humour.

12. The cold tasteless stuff you insist on calling "beer" is not actually beer at all, it is lager . From November 1st only proper British Bitter will be referred to as "beer," and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as "Lager." The substances formerly known as "American Beer" will henceforth be referred to as "Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine," with the exception of the product of the American Budweiser company whose product will be referred to as "Weak Near-Frozen Gnat's Urine." This will allow true Budweiser (as manufactured for the last 1000 years in the Czech Republic) to be sold without risk of confusion.

I wonder too, if it is John Cleese. The beer-jokes made me laugh hard tho.

(since it's old I'm trying to make up for it with another silly link.. Bee dogs. Woof woof!)

It's a hoax that has gone through quite a few revisions and iterations.

It still made me laugh.

Clearly not Cleese for several reasons, the most obvious one to me being that he can't possibly be a fan of Men Behaving Badly. Of course Cleese is also a big, big, big fan of America - he loves everything about it, particularly it's women.

I'm guessing it was probably written for some lads mag.

14. 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.

Heh.

Rebuttal:

SUBJECT: NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

To the citizens of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:

We welcome your concern about our electoral process. It must be exciting for you to see a real Republic in action, even if from a distance. As always we're amused by your quaint belief that you're actually a world power. The sun never sets on the British Empire! Right-o chum!

However, we regretfully have to decline your offer for intervention. On the other hand, it would be amusing to see you try to enforce your new policy (for the 96.3% of you that seem to have forgotten that you have little to no real power). After much deliberation, we have decided to continue our tradition as the longest running democratic republic. It seems that switching to a monarchy is in fact considered a "backwards step" by the majority of the world.

To help you rise from your current anachronistic status, we have compiled a series of helpful suggestions that we hope you adopt:

1. Realize that language is an organic structure, and that you aren't always correct in your pronunciation or spelling. Let's use your "aluminium" example. Sir Humphrey Davy (an Englishman) invented the name "aluminum" (note spelling) for the metal. However, in common usage the name evolved into "aluminium" to match the naming convention of other elements. In 1925 the United States decided to switch back to the original spelling and pronunciation of the word, at which point we dominated the aluminum industry. We'd also like to point out that the process of actually producing aluminum was developed by an American and a Frenchman (not an Englishman).

However, we'd like to thank you for the Oxford English Dictionary. It's an interesting collection, considering that over 10,000 of the words in the original edition were submitted by a crazy American civil-war veteran called Dr. William Charles Minor.

2. Learn to distinguish the American and Canadian accents, and then we'll talk about the English and Australian accent issue.

3. Review your basic arithmetic. (Hint 100 - 98.85 = 1.15 and 100 - 97.85 = 2.15)

4. If you want English actors as good guys, then make your own movies. Don't rely on us for your modern popular culture. We liked "Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels", "Trainspotting", and "The Full Monty". We've also heard good things about this "Billy Elliot". But one good movie a year doesn't exactly make a cultural powerhouse. However, you're doing pretty well with music, so keep up the good work on that front.

5. It's inefficient to have a national anthem that changes its title whenever your monarch dies. Let's not forget that your national anthem has an extremely boring tune. We suggest switching to that Rule Brittania ditty, it's toetapping. Or maybe Elton John could adapt "Candle In The Wind" again for you guys.

6. Improve at your national sport. Football? Soccer? This just in: United States gets fourth place in men's soccer at the 2000 Summer Olympics. United Kingdom? Not even close. By the way, impressive showing at Euro 2000. You almost managed to get through the tournament without having your fans start an international incident.

7. Learn how to cook. England has some top notch candy. Salt 'n' Vinegar chips are quite yummy. However, there's a reason why the best food in your country is Indian or Chinese. Your contributions to the culinary arts are soggy beans, warm beer, and spotted dick. Perhaps when you finally realize the French aren't the spawn of satan they'll teach you how to cook.

8. You're doing a terrible job at understanding cars. The obvious error is that you drive on the wrong side of the road. A second problem is pricing, it's cheaper to buy a car in Belgium and ship it to England than to buy a car in England. On the other hand, we like Jaguars and Aston Martins. That's why we bought the companies.

9. We'll tell you who killed JFK when you apologize for "Teletubbies".

Thank you for your time. Yu can now return to watching bad Australian soap operas.

P.S. — Regarding WW2: You're Welcome.

From the snopes link.

awww, fish and chips are England's best contribution to cuisine.

Don't forget a nice greasy spoon breakfast and the proper HP sauce, the only way to recover from way too many beers (real beer) instead of dinner the night before.

and, hello, deep fried mars bars!! ;)

....lets not fight guys. *throws airkisses*


≡ Click to see image ≡

*runs over John Cleese in an American pick-up truck with a NASCAR bumper sticker while drinking Budweiser*

*runs over jonmc driving a ten-ton turbocharged Unimog with a World Rally Championship sticker while drinking Tsingtao*

*gets up and walks away mildly dazed, because a lifetime diet of American beer and junkfood has made him INDESTRUCTIBLE!*

It's a hoax

So the Queen isn't actually revoking American independence?

However, we regretfully have to decline your offer for intervention.

You Yanks have been doing a lot of that of late.

... no one else plays "American" football.

I was in Canada last week. Reading the newspapers there, the sports news focused largely on 1) hockey, and 2) the Canadian Football League. The CFL, you will note, plays football, not soccer.

Someone involved with this piece is unaware of the world outside their borders, but it's not the readers.

Can someone explain to me, why in a game where the oddly shaped "ball" is held and thrown by the hands and kicked only once each go, is called football?

I mean, what the rest of the planet calls football (Canada and the USA excluded obviously), there's a penalty if you even touch the ball with your hands. It's all feet and occasional head. Unless you're the goalie, or throwing a ball back into the game after an offside.

.......or cheating like some Italian player..

Actually, dabitch, soccer is not called football here either. Depending on which state you live in, football could be Rugby, Rugby League or Australian Football.

wha? Now you are confusing me. Rugby is my all time favorite game to watch live. Huge men (sexy big thighs!) slamming into each other across a field, drawing blood on occasion - and they keep at it. Nobody gets a time out unless they lost an eye. action shot of the game.

Soccer, a.k.a Football to the rest of the world. (In Swedish it's Fotboll, In Danish it's Fotboll, In Norweigan it's fotboll, In Dutch it's voetbal, in French it's le football, in German it's Fußball... see what I mean? Everyone calls it something with a ball and foot - because you use your feet to kick the ball!). A game I used to play myself, but I only watch on telly these days if it's a World or European cup. Shinguards, a ball kicked with ones feet, behind every great goalkeeper is a ball from Ian Wright. Beckham, Ronaldinho, Totti, Ronaldo, Ballack, Raúl, Defoe, Kaká, Saviola and a million Adidas, Nike and Pepsi adverts produced starring these star players every year.

(American) Football, looks like this with big guys wearing helmets and lots of protection, stop and start every ten meters or so. Nothing like Rugby apart from the shape of the ball.

So uh.. 'soccer is not called football here either'? But you call it rugby? That's a different game! I'm not getting it. I admit though, I haven't had any coffee at all and it's seven in the morning, so...I might just not be properly awake yet.

("here" is Oz, right?)