Uncyclopedia:Pee Review/HowTo:Be English

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HowTo:Be English

What's going on?

CrabPope 16:56, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

This one's mine...

The Rt Hon W Gladstone, MP, GOM is currently discharging the contents of his bladder in the vicinity of this particular contribution. You are cordially advised to stand well back, as decades of consorting with courtesans has left his aim somewhat lacking in containment!

Humour:	7	Ah the English. Greatest Nation in the history of Nations, so important that we don't have to put our name on our stamps (to quote a famous 1950s double act: "there's only two kinds of stamps: English stamps in sets at the beginning of the album, and foreign stamps all mixed at the other end. Any Gibbon could tell you that.") The English are also inherently funny, having invented most types of comedy and coming up with a new one every couple of decades (the most recent being the "uncomfortably close to home so that laughter is nervous rather than raucous" typified in "The Office", "The Royle Family", and most excruciating of all, "Peep Show"). Anyway, The article. Is it funny? I want it to be. I want to see a piece of sharply observed wit that highlights our arrogance (did I mention that the English are like, the greatest ever?), our stiff upper lip, our arrogance, our propensity to wear socks with sandals, our arrogance, our hatred of the French, our arrogance, our hatred of the Scots/Welsh/Irish/Australians, our arrogance, our crapness at most sports, oh and did I mention arrogance? And it does do some of that. Not all, but it's on the way; hopefully this review will help it improve. Appearance - gets the right idea - the bit about wearing a waistcoat and dinner jacket at all times genuinely made me chuckle. But then, it's spoiled in a couple of places by stuff that's just cliched. Stiff upper lip - got it, but as eny fule kno, nitrogen doesn't bleach and hence that whole bit about teeth bleaching was wasted. And it's important, because if you're a ank that's the first thing you tink about. And referring to paedophiles is just annoying, becuase it adds nothing to it. Speech - This bit has got to be better. There's so much which could be done, and it's just not there. The table is short and the words mainly pointless, though to be fair they do graduate from simple ones to more offensive. Enemies - Some of its good, but it's not really enemies but more "English abroad". Our enemies are many and bitter, including most former colonies, all current colonies, all of Europe (special mention to the Germans and the French). Why should the aspiring little-Englander hate the Germans or the French (I know it's self-explanatory and any self respecting homo sapien would, but you know what I mean)? Diet - Probably the best bit, though it could be phrased better. And while Fish and Chips is the national dish, I'd argue that "anything deep fied" is actually Scottish and would therefore be a dead giveaway.
Concept:	7	Realistically, it's a well worn concept. There's American, Australian, French, Brazilian, Mexican, Scottish... It works. But that ought to mean that something new is added, rather than just repeating the same, so it's average, I'm afraid.
Prose and formatting:	6	This might seem harsh, but it's a bit of a bugbear of mine. Formatting isn't too bad, though you could break up your paragraphs a bit more it's quite difficult to read large chunks of text on a screen without a few more line breaks. Prose wise though, there's a few things wrong: British or English? The two are not the same, and if you're insulting the Scots or the Welsh then this is quite important. english, american - please, give them capital letters. The opposite applies for Liquid Nitrogen - why is that capitalised? spelling - colonist (colonialist), descendant (descendent) are two that immediately leap out. Punctuation - did you realise that the first sentence in Appearance is 70 words long? Another sentence in the piece has more than 50... it's too much, I think. Links - correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Jock should actually be Jock and Frog should be Frog. There's others which have potential as well which isn't used;
Images:	6	Well, there's three of them, but they're a bit dull. The Wayne Rooney one is OK though I imagine our American friends might miss the inside joke on that one. The telephone box confused me, until I worked out that it was more for the hookers' notices in it - problem is, you can't see them so it lost all effect and just had me wondering why it wasn't a picture of a red phone box. As for the guy in the beret, surely it's French? It just seems a bit pointless, and the caption wasn't really in keeping with the rest of the article.
Miscellaneous:	6.5	Averaged
Final Score:	32.5	The best example of "How to be English" I have ever seen in on "Goodness Gracious Me", in the sketch with the Coopers and the Robinsons. They're trying so hard to be English, and it's so well observed - I'd have a look on a popular video sharing website to get some ideas fom that. Otherwise, good luck; I'd love to see it get much better.
Reviewer:	Rt Hon W E Gladstone MP GOM | Converse | 16:13, 16 July 2008 (UTC)