Yesterday was a great day for conversations with my Raven. Firstly we had the ‘his n her’ cars convo and later we moved on to one of my favourites. Should the USA rejoin the British Empire? Should it have ever left?
Let us look at the many benefits that would have happened if they had chucked the rebels into Boston harbour and kept the tea instead.
Of course the major improvement would have been that Americans would have benefited from driving on the correct side of the highway, that being the left hand side. Now it is a well known fact that large numbers of vehicles driving on the right causes tornadoes. This is because as the vehicles pass they cause anti clockwise rotation of air which causes the naughty tornadoes in the first place. When vehicles drive on the left it causes clockwise rotation which cancels out the tornadoes. That’s why we don’t get them in the UK.
Next. You could have kept your Obama’s and Regan’s etc. but they would have been Governor Generals rather than mere ‘presidents’ a far more prestigious title I think you will agree plus they would get free tickets to the Royal Weddings and Wimbledon … bonus. Also the colonies would now be the proud owners of British red telephone boxes at every corner.
Of course the term ‘colony’ would have long gone and the States could have become British counties. Doesn’t Ohioshire, Californiashire and Floridashire sound much more sophisticated? Baseball could go back to being girlie rounders and you could have County Cricket, the sport of gentlemen instead.
Americans could serve in the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force and this would also help us as we seem to be without any aircraft carriers at the moment and would beat the indignity of sharing one with the Frenchies as we do presently. Of course they would need to be renamed. Some suggestions would be H.M.S Margaret Thatcher, H.M.S Bruce Forsyth and H.M.S Gary Lineker. You would also jointly own Canada.
Next a bit about American spelling. You would at long last get to spell properly. It is actually a little known fact that American misspelling was the fault of a Mr Webster who created the first US dictionary yonks (US: a long time) ago. Now Mr Webster was a timid man, a bit of a speccy (US: nerd) in fact. Webby was attacked as a child by a female sheep which in latter years caused him to be averse to the letter U and so on being told to go get writing a dictionary he deliberately left out as many U’s as possible giving you favor and flavor instead of the correct favour and flavour. Also as there was a printing ink shortage at the time he was told to economise. To do this he decided to replace double L’s with singular ones. So now you have traveling (UK: travelling).
Admit it you are really getting educated today now aren’t you but now on to money. Dollars? What the heck? You could have the British Pound Sterling back. I would actually propose that we should get rid of decimalisation also which was a piece of Frenchie nefariousness in the first place to undermine the British way of life, and return to real British money. We all preferred Pounds, Shillings and pence anyway and many happy moments occurred as in past days we swindled Johnny Foreigner out of his Francs/Marks/Pesetas because they could not understand our traditional currency.
The Pound ruled, unless you went to an auction in which case you used Guineas which was a bit bigger than a pound. Each pound consisted of either:
240 pennies
20 shillings
8 half crowns
4 crowns
80 thruppenny bits.
40 tanners
480 ha’pennies
960 farthings
10 florins
and lastly
2 10 bob notes.
Add 5% to all the above to get a Guinea.
Simples eh? But we also had ha’pennies and farthings and could use 4 layers of currency. Something could cost £1/15s/6d and 3 farthings being One pound fifteen shillings and sixpence three farthings. Heady days indeed and many school pupils of the days heads actually exploded when being asked to work out the cost of the above applied to 8 articles with a 12 ½ % discount taken off at the till.
But unfortunately we are now lumbered with just plain pounds containing 100 pence. It was apparently down to the French when their President visited us back in the 1960s. He was trying to buy a croissant in Lyon’s bakery in Finchley North London but had to make do with ‘ze ridiculerz Eenglish Custard tart. He later found out that it had cost him 5 million Francs and half of the Loire Valley courtesy of an enterprising local. Bye bye shillings etc. after that if we had any hope of joining the Common Marche.
But I digress. Other benefits would include replacing MacDonald’s with McGrannies Hot Bun Shoppe. Taco Bell with Taco Pie and Mash and KFC with Kentuckyshire Jellied Eels.
Much healthier I am sure. Coke and Pepsi would never have happened in favour of Dandelion and Burdock and Bitter Shandy. Tea would be drunk hot with milk and sugar as god meant it to be also.
Pontiacs, Chevy’s, Fords? No way. It is a well known fact that the British make the best cars in the world. Our industry actually was proud in the glory days of the 70’s when it kept many thousands happily out on strike and free to spend more time in the pub or the bookmakers.
Our Austin’s, Morris’s and Reliant Robins should rule the world again. Our car firms were in fact so good that they are mostly owned by foreigners now.
But finally American’s wake up and join us in being British again. Join us in proudly singing ‘God Save The Queen.’ (US: The Lady Queen not the Venerable Sir Elton John of Watfordshire). Join us in beating Johnny Foreigner to the tune of ‘ Rule Britannia’ while quaffing pints of warm dark brown beer washed down with cheese and onion crisps (US: chips) and pork pies.
God Save the Queen and god bless America.
© 2011 Stan Rogers. All rights reserved.