Wednesday, April 11, 2007

A Trip to England which is in europe ( kind of on the side of it)

Maybe if you were going on vacation you might like to go to England. This is about England so that you can read it and know what it's going to be like and not have to be embarrassed because you don't know anything.

PEOPLE
Everyone in England has a title only it's not Mr. or Mrs like here. You have to say either 'Sir' something or other or 'Lady' something or other when you talk to them. They have other ranks too, like duke, earl or lieutenant. You have to bow when you meet somebody.

Everything is fancy. All the clothes are really cool. The men wear wigs, and their clothes look like what like pirates wear, only better and not torn up. The ladies have long dresses made out of silk that cost a million dollars! They have big poofy sleeves and sometimes even real jewels on their clothes for decoration, not fake ones. They can do that if they feel like it. Their houses are full of big paintings, and velvet, and really nice wallpaper, and gold on everything. The people use real silver to eat with. That's why they call it 'silverware'. Ours over here isn't made of silver. It's like chrome or something.

All the people who aren't like a lord or something are peasants. Not like the bird. No, these are like servants and farmers and maids in waiting. They do all the work and everyone else is rich and says 'Oh Jeeves, pour me a cup of tea my good man' and then they just sit and the peasant does it. And the peasants have to clean the house and everything.

Sometimes the rich people are really mean to them but most of them are pretty nice. If they aren't the peasants will have a war and stab pitchforks through them because that's what they have and nobody would suspect them, like, 'Oh, there's a peasant walking down the street with a pitchfork, ho hum'. But they'll stick it right through you. So they have to be nice.

When the kids are little they have to go to these schools where they make everyone wear neckties and the teachers are really mean. They have to live there and not see their parents except for like around Christmas for a really short couple of days. Even if they're not bad. Plus they don't let the boys and the girls even go to the same school. The boys have to be boyfriends with each other until they're old enough to get married, then they get married to one of the girls from the girls schools and then go live in a castle and have children. The maids have to change all the diapers.

Everyone lives in a castle. Except the peasants. They live in cottages. A cottage is a small house and theres hay on the roof because they can't afford shingles.

DANGER IN ENGLAND
Vikings are dangerous. They come from Dutch Holland, which floods all the time. They want to have a new land so they keep invading England a lot. But they still can't live there. Will they win? Nobody knows this question.

Pirates know that England is full of rich people so there are pirates everywhere in these huge ships with sails on them. You have to be really careful. You could be watching one direction, but the pirates can just sail their ships around to the other side of the island and sneak up on your town. Sometimes the pirates have swords but mainly they use cannons that fire grenades and your whole town gets on fire, and all the people run away and then the pirates go in and steal all the stuff that isn't burned up. And then they sail away until they need more stuff.

Way back in olden days there might have been dragons but they all got killed by the knights. I think they were a type of dinosaurs that could breathe fire, but nobody has discovered them yet.

Plus robbers and other crime people.

Varlets are bad. The only steal very small things.

Knaves
are dangerous. They steal pie.

WARS
Hitler was really bad and tried to take over England. Then the English guys bombed him and let all the prisoners free and then the war was over!

GOVERNMENT
England has a queen, which is so, so cool. She is the boss of the whole land. Other countries have to have a president. We have a president. The president is boring.

He doesn't go to wars. He has to sit in an office and he can't even look out the window because a whole bunch of reporters would try and take pictures of the inside of his place and then maybe spies could get ahold of them and make plans to sneak in. But he can have a pet, like a dog or a cat.

England has a Queen, which is a lady king, and she rules everyone in the whole country and all the people and makes all the rules for everything.

Everyone has to do what she tells them. And if someone goes against the law, she says 'Off with their heads!' and then they get their heads cut off on this big slicer thing that comes down and whack! and then your heads lying there in like this bowl and blood is shooting out of your neck and it's really sick. But sometimes she could cut off your head too with a sword.
She can. She's the queen.

When there's a war she orders the whole war. All the knights come and fight, and the air force goes over and bombs the other guys until they give up, and the queen says 'OK, this fight is done, we are the winners!'. And the ones that lose have to pay her 1 billions of dollars because they started it. And then they're poor, and the queens says' You have to come be part of my land now!" and they have to.

The queen is top. Next are the prince and the princess, who are the queens little boy and little girl. When she dies one takes over. Then the other one is still a prince or a princess, but they don't get to run anything... just go around and be rich and have carriages and wear diamonds and rubies and gold and emeralds. And they get to wear a crown too. But littler than the queen one.

When someone does something really nice or famous, the queen makes them a knight. She dubs them on the head with her sword (it doesn't even really hurt) They might think she's going to cut their head off but they hae to just be very careful. But she says 'Rise, sir so and so!' (She just makes up a name.) And then they can get away! And they're not dead! And now they have to show up and be a knight if theres a war, but they get to wear armour and have a horse and be rich plus be in parades!

TRANSPORTATION
Only the rich people have cars. Some of the peasants can have trucks. They have doctors, though. Everyone rides horses.

You can take an airplane to get to England, or a big ship, or a submarine. You can't get to it on land.

GROCERIES
Everyone lives on farms. They raise sheep and cows. Probably some vegetables. They have to make their own clothes. You can go to jewelery stores there. They have Inns, which is like a McDonalds only older fashioned . You can have things like soup or stew, and beer, and water.
They know how to make all their own stuff. Even scissors! They can knit and do all sewing. They invented american cheese. They invented pies. Only they put weird stuff like birds and potatoes in them, not the right stuff like apples because they don't know how to do them good. They have olden ways still.

HISTORY OF PILGRIMS
That's why we say 'they live in the old country'. Because we live in the new America country, and so we're the new people, but they stayed behind because there wasn't any more room left on the Mayflower so the pilgrims said they had to stay in the old country and do everything the old way. We get to have electricity and television. But we have a boring president who I don't think even does anything, except be on television. That is the suck part because a queen would be way cooler. She has way cooler clothes and wears a long cape like Superman. Everyone would be proud of her.

So go visit England and be very nice to all the people. It is a nice place; there is a lot of old castles and ruins to see and you can meet royal people too. Have fun!

____________________
(when i was very little my grandmother would tell me stories about the 'olden days'. when she'd get tired of that she'd ask me to tell her a story instead, and give me a subject. between the two of us, cracking up laughing and drawing pictures for illustrations, we came up with some doozies! like this one!)

23 comments:

  1. Dude, I don't think you've been to England. *I* have been to England. I will tell you what it's like.

    In England, the girls wear really really short skirts. All the boys wear girls' shirts. It gets really confusing, because everyone has the same haircut, which for guys is long but for girls it's short. So weird.

    All the girls are models and the boys are rock stars. They dance in the streets a lot, and ride scooters. It's all very colorful. Some boys wear dresses, but that's considered alright over there. The boys kiss each other sometimes, too.

    They get into fights a lot. The ones on the scooters and the ones with the greasy hair. And then the ones with the mohawks puke on them both.

    Everyone wants to be in Carnaby Street, because that's where all the rock stars hang out. You know who they are because a big pack of girls might come running out of nowhere and attack them. And everyone talks in funny code words, so you can't understand them.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You have it so absolutely right - how do you know so much?

    ReplyDelete
  3. but when i was in England there was tea everywhere. it was like the rivers and other watery stuff we have here, but there it's all tea.

    also, there is some circus on the map in London, but i think it's a lie, cause we never found a circus.

    ReplyDelete
  4. w2: thats in modern times. im talking about way olden times like forty years ago. but parts of it are still that way. did you see the beatles??
    i love john!!!!!!! i want to marry him!
    ziggi: because i watch movies and see it on tv like in the news. and sometimes the newspaper too. and magazines like 'snow white and the brothers grimm'.
    claire: you should have looked for the circus better because a circus is fun. england people have fun circuses they even have a merry go round! and penguins are the waiters. you could have tea from them.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The English invented cheese? Don't tell the French!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The English didn't invent cheese, they just took credit for it, like everything else.

    However, I have it on good authority that the English DID invent music. And thus invented music "journalism".

    ReplyDelete
  7. cb: they totally invented cheese. we copied velveeta from them. french people invented lace and butter.
    w2: no, they did invent cheese AND MUSIC. that's because they had the smart cave men. but they couldn't write, see, just play music, like, 'ug ug, ug ug' type of music. cave music. but they invented it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Anonymous2:23 PM

    I want to hear the story of Scotland now. Because I am Scottish, and I am curious as to what you think about us. England is definitely like that - I can say that because I live there now.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "You have to say either 'Sir' something or other or 'Lady' something or other when you talk to them."

    Being a native of So Cal, I find that "Dude" works very well in all situations.... "Dude, how the fuck are you?" "Dude, where's my hybrid car?" "Dude, quit beating me with your diamond-topped cane!" You get the idea.

    ReplyDelete
  10. See, this is how grannies are supposed to amuse the little scions.Fantastic post,FN.
    (You can't marry John cos he's dead.But Paul is back in circulation!)

    ReplyDelete
  11. Anonymous3:40 PM

    well, that does it. i'm never going to england. i think i'll go to great britain instead.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wait, where are all the people in frilly shirts with big hair and makeup so you can't tell the boys from the girls? You've forgotten about the "second British invasion," where everybody had synthesizers and was on the soundtrack for a Brat Pack movie. That's the England I always wanted to go to...

    ReplyDelete
  13. ooooo! ooooo! DO THE Q.A.T.!!!!! DO THE Q.A.T! Or the little refry-bean guy. What was his name?
    Ondelay, ondelay, ariba!

    ReplyDelete
  14. You forgot Dick Van Dyke. He is English. As is Daphne's brother from Frasier.

    Amazon is sending out copies of WTTM, btw. Lemme know if you're still left hanging.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ok, can someone please stop me from laughing.

    And why is now I want to go horseback riding?

    ReplyDelete
  16. I am English, which is why my butler is writing this comment for me.

    I'm too busy drinking tea out of gold cups.

    ReplyDelete
  17. You are so right FN , as is patently obvious I am Lord Beast and live in a castle whereas Frobisher is a peasant , I allow him to wash my car , cook my dinners and muck out the horses. Occasionally I will speak to him nicely as long as he doffs his cap and utters the time honoured response of 'gawd bless ya lordship , your a real toff and no mistake'.
    as Warrior two noted I wear a dress at least some of the time , (unless I am fox hunting).I dont make a habit of kissing Frobisher unless hes been thoroughly scrubbed .As Queen Marie Antionette noted ' the peasants are revolting'.
    I am now off to ensure Dorcas the palourmaid has polished me jewels correctly , an then we shall have a nice pot of tea and some crumpets

    ReplyDelete
  18. I am often assaulted by Lord Beast in the stables - and I am supposed to tug my forelock and thank him afterwards. The plus side is that I have an extra potato for dinner! Thank goodness we discovered America else I wouldn't even have a potato!

    ReplyDelete
  19. ha! i've been waiting for the british comments to start rolling in...

    FN, btw - i LOVE this post.

    Ok, cheerio.

    ReplyDelete
  20. I'd like to hear about, like, the Irish?

    I saw some Americans in a pub in Ireland having a conversation about some woman they'd encountered who was "like, really typical, like, really folksy and homespun? She had, like, six, seven children or something?" They didn't get as far as saying that she was talking about the potato famine or had a pig under her arm, which surprised me.

    In other news, the competition is on to see whether Tim's book arrives at FN's address or mine first!

    ReplyDelete
  21. liam: hello see, i knew it! scotland is nice. the men wear dresses like catholic school uniforms for girls and they play bagpipes which makes the sheep sad. so they have to live in scotland.
    fatty: 'dude' is the all purpose swiss army knife term address and is always correct in any situation.
    dinah: she was great, dinah. i still miss her, too.
    pink: or the U.K which is almost like england but has more modern things.
    danator: see, that's in the U.K. land part! they have electricity there. everyone does the 'twist' dance.
    harlot: shhhhhhhhh! the Q.A.T. is secret! he is on a mission of secrecy!
    tim: i would like to take this brief 'time out' from the weird and apologize on behalf of my entire country for the horror and the shame that was Disneys' 'Mary Poppins'. have a happy chim chimminey day.
    awaiting: you could pick any horse you want! they make you wear a little beanie cap and weird pants though.
    kellycat: be nice to him or he will stab a pitchfork through you. that's why american doesn't have butlers; we don't want to have to be nice all the time.
    beast: I KNEW IT! that is so cool! why do the guys wear white wigs? is it to be like france?
    frobi: wow that sounds mean. maybe you should hide a pitchfork and next time you could give him a little poke. you are welcome i like potatoes too!
    claire: they invented cheerios too! wow! i like cheerios! how do they make all those little o shapes? i guess maybe the peasants do that.
    betty: wow, she sounds really irish. i bet she has to spank those kids with a shilleleigh. that's what they do. it's because they're catholic.

    ReplyDelete
  22. You're so right, it's too posh here for words. Even the man who cleans our blocked drains is too genteel to say 'shit', he prefers the phrase 'evacuate your bowels'.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous10:18 AM

    I met a Korean Girl in Seoul who told me "I have been to England" "Oh yes - where abouts?" quoth I fiddling with me doublet. "Dublin" she replied "oh and Edinburgh" In revenge I convinced her that West Country was home to migratory albino parrots which migrated there every Summer from the Fjords of Norway.

    ReplyDelete