Well now, your responsibilities, that go with
the rights WE ENJOY, are as follows:
1)
I suggest
you have your name sewn into everything you wear (including your pants) as we
don’t need identity cards to keep you in line. The police only need to check
your drawers to verify your identity (See Footnote 1).
2)
Learn the word, “Sorry”… it’s like the Icelandic
for “Snow”… it is far more complicated than you can possible understand as a novice,
as related to this GLOBALLY influential culture that many seem to underestimate
(don’t worry, we know you do, and you will be made to understand the error of your
ways, rest assured)
3)
Respect… if you don’t give it, you don’t get
it…and you NEED to understand the double meaning to that before you get to
play…
4)
RULES – they exist, we understand them, but
unlike Germans, we know that no one is perfect, and breaking, bending,
twisting, or just plain being clever and getting round them is utterly
acceptable, as long you don’t break the previous rule of respect…
5)
Do what you want behind closed doors (but refer
to Rule 6 if there is any concern/doubt/pain/or fluid involved)… if you’re
English “behind closed doors” is almost obligatory for most behaviour as we’re
still handcuffed by the idiocy that was the Victorians… but as they have been
long since exposed as hypocrites maybe you understand the English a little
better now… the FRONT, is AS IMPORTANT as the intention… don’t make the mistake
of thinking our “inconsistencies” are not utterly understood by us… we may
drink tea, and demonstrate a simple love of the pleasure and irony of any given
moment without taking it as painfully seriously as German people, but like the
Japanese before us, tea beats coffee, caffeine, and Coca Cola without even
looking at her cards… the tea thing is ice-bergian, the visible bit is but a
tenth of the depth of meaning… if you think you understand, you still do not. Work
harder at you and yourself, we might consider your application again if you
keep trying.
6)
No matter what you want to do behind closed
doors… if you hurt another person, or animal, you have NOT got what it takes to
be British… if you want to discuss this, you should ask yourself whether being
British is for you? Now, many may suggest that Britains’ recent diplomatic hard
core… sorry, corps… ie West Ham, Milwall and Man U, suggest I am ill-informed
and need a foreigner based in Brussels to teach me all about Britishness, but I
as a passport carrying Englishman would ask you to consider that those weren’t
our true emissaries… many barely speak English, they don’t understand cricket
and choose NOT to do so, and think that because they can afford wide screens,
they are free individuals no longer lorded over by the aristocrats… So please
do not mistake their passports for diplomatic credentials. They wouldn’t hurt
English people or animals either.
7)
By the way… NEVER EVER FORGET TEA… I have no
idea at all how to stress the importance of
this rule to you… if you were to meditate for thousands of years in the
armpit of the Dalai Lama, you might see the edge of the ethereal glow that
shrouds and embraces “English tea culture” but you would still need many more
lifetimes glasshopper…
8) In certain circumstances, DOGS may be considered
more important than people. If you don’t understand, that’s your problem.
9)
Cats, although animals, represent the early
stages of spinsterdom. If a man owns a cat, this rule gets confused… we haven’t
worked out how to categorise single men with cats… but the single woman/cat
thing, so far, has been mostly right…
10)
Queues – this is one that has frustrated the
English for centuries and disturbingly fuels the embarrassment of anger at the
modern culture of Queue jumping. This has been slowly introduced to England by thousands
of “non-English people”, modern developments in appropriate behaviour, the
culture changing impact of the internet and so on and it raises a myriad of
embarrassing and convoluted problems that even tea will struggle to resolve.
a.
Firstly… racism… this is a tin that should be
handled carefully because despite the old English stereotype, racism is alive
and well, hence the cringe-worthy embarrassment to any proper Englishmen that
has read this far. We understand that the world we created for ourselves is
what we wanted and not necessarily to everyone else’s tastes (although we do
wish they would stop mucking around and think a little more like us) That said,
we are TOO polite (allegedly) to question visitors that show no respect to our
way of life. We just hope that they go home feeling ashamed of themselves… but
when they stay and then influence and change the communally accepted
Englishness that we were raised with and that Johnny Foreigner has clearly chosen
o come and appreciate as well suddenly it all gets very confusing … you get so
stuck in the implications… that even tea doesn’t fix the problem…
b.
The ONLY way to understand this at all is to
refer to Rule 3. If this is too complicated or you still haven’t understood its
basic premise, do not engage an Englishman in a discussion of this matter... you
might nullify his Englishness for which he will never forgive you, and worse he
might say something that just isn’t cricket.
11)
Humour… this is your responsibility. This isn’t a case of sink or swim. It’s
a little more complex.
a.
Imagine the following… Johnny Wilkinson’s
dedication, Monty Python’s existence, England’s misguided, but nevertheless,
UTTERLY unswervable belief that we own the World Cup, a town called Dunkirk,
the ability to stand up to Germans unlike the rest of the EU, and tea… then add
purified steel, titanium, the invention of all the best sports in the world,
and cricket. This might help you understand how much is required to be as funny
as the English…
You may be as crude, clever or any
combination of the two as you dare, but if you cannot understand that double
meaning is our forte, despite the French coining the phrase double entendre to
try and steal some of the glory, and that our love/hate relationship with the
French means everything is both barbed AND potentially perverse depending on
the “jokers” present situation or story, then you will never understand why we
are the funniest people on earth … We may have invented football, but we lost
that… WE NEVER LOST HUMOUR!
Rule 4 Additional
- RULES – The Germans perfected their implementation, the French have excelled
in demonstrating history by developing the finest lack of respect for them as
well as a social responsibility to oppose them, foreign cultures aspire to
them… but what does it tell you about the British, that ALL non combative
international competition that has removed death from the battlefield and
replaced it with uniforms, trophies and endless regulations, that are quoted
most successfully by Sue what’s her name of Tennis fame, were invented here…
football, rugby/USfootball, cricket/rounders/baseball/softball, tennis, golf,
running, jumping, flying, sailing, GLOBAL TIME, etc., etc.
a.
See 3) WE UNDERSTAND AND HAVE TRANSCENDED RULES…
but don’t you dare forget WE ARE THE ORIGIN OF ALL RULES (the Greeks went
bankrupt, use of their input as opposition to any of the above is tenuous at
best) (the Italians just don’t count are not coming to the discussion, the sun
is better in Rimini).
FOOTNOTES:
Footnote 1: Do they have M&S or Marks and
Spencer’s written anywhere on them? No? Then you don’t have what it takes! And
do NOT say Calvin Klein at this point… if you wear pants with a man’s name on
the outside… what will your wife think of you… ?
Footnote 2: All Germans are wrong… they like Mr Bean.
Footnote 3: All French views are invalid. They are
French and therefore ridiculous so stop being so silly. For god’s sake man,
pull yourself together and think about how your mother would feel if she knew
you were considering that socialist, garlicky, lingerie clad embarrassment… you
should know better…
