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!
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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!)
