Monoclinic

Whale beak! Squid preditors!

You are quite right, I received again today John Cleese's letter to the Americans ch 1 vs 1-23 (although the email didn't quote Cleese and thus in my copying and pasting I regrettably didn't give my sources too, please accept my humble apologies!) So you're claiming that the Queen didn't write it? I am sure he was acting as the Queen scribe to the Philistines.

You are quite right, I received again today John Cleese's letter to the Americans ch 1 vs 1-23 (although the email didn't quote Cleese and thus in my copying and pasting I regrettably didn't give my sources too, please accept my humble apologies!)

MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN 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. (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 Kansas, which she does not fancy). Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections nor relentless international media airtime. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed. To aid the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect: ----------------------- 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.' Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (Look up 'vocabulary'). ------------------------ 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.' ------------------- 3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday. ----------------- 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. ---------------------- 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. ---------------------- 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. -------------------- 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. ------------------- 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. ------------------- 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. --------------------- 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 dialogue in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one's ears removed with a cheese grater. --------------------- 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). --------------------- 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 widely 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. -------------------- 13. You must tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us mad. ----------------- 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). --------------- 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! PS: This post is intended only for those with a good sense of humour

According to the slide show on the Times' website: "The 22-mile flight from Calais to Dover took 10 minutes," and "Rossy reached speeds of 125mph during the short flight". Now, I'm no mathematical genius, but if a 22 mile flight took ten minutes, that would mean in one hour he could fly 132 miles, so his average speed must have been 132 mph. Which makes the journalist a gormless buffoon. You'd think a paper called the "Times" would know multiplication Furthermore he cheated. He jumped out of a helicopter and had a parachute to land!

Ah, is this the return of the Latin quoting squidmonger? Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Il est dans le sommeil profond

Taken from Pimp my Panda

Bollocks. IMHO I think his legacy extends a bit further than "THAT" photo, destined to adorn student bedrooms from then to forever. Especially in South America. They often take their heros to heart and their military figures too. Just as several of these countries have public holidays in honour of General San Martin, Simón Bolívar et al, to celebrate their liberation from the Spanish I think perhaps we would have seen a "Che Guevara day" if he had been successful in liberating their countries from the oppression of infamous dictatorships. Whether or not you believe his viewpoint that capitalism is at fault for economic inequalities and that a global (and violent) revolution would be the best way to instigate social reforms, his heart was in the right place. Leaders of powerful nations seem to come and go, all promising a better life, to resolve some of the world's problems and to live as one yet we still hear of third world debt, famine, disease, war... He may have tried and failed, but at least he tried. You can chose to ignore this post, it is after all subjective twaddle, I for one think most politicians are a crock of sh*t and my objective when I vote is to chose who I might think to be the best of the worst. They're there to tax us and keep us in line, everything else is a bonus.

This is a highly controversial manoeuvre. As a spin off to the thread, I wish to post a whole clip.

This guy's got a black belt in getting his leg over and a life ban to boot. Anyone come up with a caption?

Highly commendable effort there and thankfully not a hint of comic sans in sight. I almost forgot that there were pages outside of the forum. Bravo.

Happy birthday HCW!!!

It would have been a damn sight easier if they'd given him a glass of milk...

Neither, she was a singer, ever heard of The Carpenters? Didn't she have a brother, Jesus, Jones or something?

I heard he had a stroke. (Hark! tumbleweed)

I see the news was announced by Max Clifford. What a wonderful opportunity for her public rehabilitation. Anyone else smell a rat? My cynicism worries me sometimes. I'm smelling a "kebab" Beef? Curtains for the Indian Big Bro programme mind.

I think that one's a bit before my time. However we did use to pass notes around class with some crap jibe which was swiftly followed by "you should have gone to B&Q". Oh the hilarity.[/sarcastic voice]

This "impossible quiz" will sort the girls out from the men

For a polyglot, I'm disappointed with that, Mono. The town to which you refer is not a county and goes something like this... Llanfairpwllgwygyllgogerychwndrobwyllllantysiliogogogoch. That's from memory, so it might not be 100%, but should be close enough for government work. I was being facetious, I am sorry honez. I know it's really just sheepshagshire but that's far too easy to get the tongue around, unlike most welsh As for polyglot, I've a long way to go yet and I think it's turning more and more into Esperanto with every passing day.

Absolutely terrible! I could only fathom 23 constellations, most of my time spent spelling sagittarius but it did earn me another one that I never knew existed! Then as for the English, let's just say at least 20% of my 100 common words are not on that list, some of them can even bypass the filter on this site, just. After a few I changed tactics to think of the words you first learn in French, still didn't help me get more than 42%. Probably because the first words you learn in French are along the lines merde, putain, sallope... Anyway, you've all established long ago that linguistics is not my forte. At least I am assured of the useful skill of being able to name all the counties and a fair few countries. (Thankfully those minor countries in the UK were not included. Welshman, does westpwllglamorgangwynsheepshagshiregogogoch actually exist?)

With all the democracy of an African presidential election, other latecomers have been added. I hope you weren't too rash in casting your vote for Karen, if I could change my vote it'd probably be for Dorothy. Although I think H can be happy in the knowledge that thus far only one person has voted for Muddy Waters the original suggestion from one of our most favourite threads. Yes, I know it's the lowest form but it's one I resort to on many occasions.

Harry's original post deleted owing to MS font incompatibilities. (Madame Defarge - I am trying my best, it doesn't appear to be working though!) I did a little search to see if we made it under 25 (we don't) as we can't even spend the national debt of Leitchtenstein on a decent manager let alone players. However I found this slightly antiquated list and it's not to say we shall be retiring "Pele's" shirt or should that be sh*t... I think we have many that play in sh*ts rather than in shirts these days. Others believe the origins of the phrase can be traced to a more naval based region of the country. Okay, you can go back to talking about the game for men who are too scared to play Rugby now. I can't remember where the topic deviated, something to do with fudge packers? Ah... the old ones are always old.