This is strictly for amusement and prompted slightly by the thread elsewhere re: Charlton Heston. Although I got rather distracted...

Are the British the only race who make a feature of looking like fools on the world stage?

This thread could go anywhere you like (or nowhere).

For instance - ever tried having a relationship with two people and ending up with nothing?

Contributions?

The Special Relationship
(Or…The New Deal)

When our kindly uncle sneezes
We always get the ‘flu
When his mortgages are oversold
It presages a summer cold
We wish that we could break the mould
And start the deal anew

So that now we’ve finished paying
For his help in WW11
And for keeping out of Vietnam
By entering Afghanistan
Iraq too, let’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E the man
Let’s start the deal anew

We’ll have to split the goods though
Work out what goes to who
The “right” to bear arms he can keep
(The right to get shot in your sleep)
And country music makes us weep
So he can keep that too

But there is other music
And we like the kind that’s blue
Its history’s misunderstood
Belongs back in the English ‘hood
The blues was born in Cricklewood (Back in the slav’ry times)
We always thought he knew

We don’t like Starbucks coffee
And Maccy-D’s like poo
And The War On Terror (TWOT for short)
Is something we cannot support
We’re fond of Hitchcock – be a sport
We’ll keep his films to view

Dear Sam…

I know you’d like to make a speech
That’s right on (auto-)cue
Please let me say (before you speak)
This isn’t all one-way traffique
Our Constitution’s rather weak
Where some of yours rings true

Pursuing life and liberty’s
A lovely thing to do
And happiness a worthy prize
Which nobody would criticise
But killing to democratise?
(The many ruled by few) ] (The British Empire was, of course, a different thing entirely)

Before we both get lawyered up
Our marriage to unglue
Please let me there restrain ya
‘Ware litigation mania
Before it gets insanier
We hate that boy named “sue”

And what about the children -
The offspring of we two?
We’ll have to work a rota
Between Manchester and Minnesota
Each of us still be a doter
Yes - that ought to do

The language is our favourite
I must give you your due
You’ve changed it and you’ve added bits
Enriched it too (with “Bud” and “Schlitz”
And “Hot Dog”, “Nix”, “Hominy Grits”)
Let’s not get in a stew

But share it nicely’s my request
Let us be friends with you
Let’s keep an open dialogue
(And we’ll ignore your New World brogue)
‘Twill be like falling off a log
The grown up thing to do

Some things we won’t agree about
And I can think of two
Victoria and David Becks
(I’d really like to wring their necks)
You keeping them’s more fun than sex
No you…no you…no you…

The Epilogue

On second thoughts the options are

To duck out now on Eurostar
To have Strasbourg and Brussels too
Deciding what we ought to do
And not be able to pretend
We’re still world class and in the end
Be hardly welcome in the club
Yeah verily – and there’s the rub

Or stick with Sam (we know him well)
And just accept that war is hell
Our houses, for a while, won’t sell

It’s Hobson’s choice, I’m sad to tell

Though choice is what we sadly lack
OK – we’ll have the Beckhams back
But that Atlantic’s awful wide
And every year it gets some wider
With a foot on either side
Our crotch the apex of dividers

No earthly good can come of this
I warrant it will end in tears
I’m sorry if I took the piss
Oh please dear uncle – calm my fears
And bold Britannia help us too
Relationships…whaddya gonna do?

Self-Deprecation

We got into Iraq, I know,
Because some moron said, "Let's go!"
And like good sheep we all agreed.
We like to watch the others bleed,
But then those others fired back.
It's more than brains that we might lack.