A Revised History of the United Kingdom

As a child, I went through a minor Anglophile phase, where I watched A Knight's Tale, memorized the "To be or not to be speech" from Hamlet, and wrote a book report on how much it sucked to be Anne Boleyn.  Thanks to this (albeit short) time in my life, I like to think I have a slightly better understanding of British history than your average American off the street.  But thanks to Danny "DanMan" Boyle and the Olympic opening ceremonies he most brilliantly organized as a tribute to his own movies, I realized just how much I didn't know.  In fact, to my horror, my understanding of England's history was more or less completely off.  

So I want to give major props to DanMan for setting the record straight.  In his honor, I'm going to continue with this record-straightening--first by publishing a revised history of UK to my little-read blog, and then by organizing my CD collection.


Thus I bring you:

A Revised History of the United Kingdom 

according to the London Olympic opening ceremonies

(and my interpretation thereof)
(using lots of pictures I found on the internet which belong to their respective owners)

Part I

I bet most of you think you know where the UK is.  I bet you all think it's an island in the proximity of mainland Europe, and it has historically made up for that proximity with a navy.  I bet you think it includes Northern Ireland.  I bet you think it is located here:

WRONG WRONG WRONG, you are all WRONG.  England can be found here, only a few months trek from Gondor:

You know how I know?

Thanks, DanMan!

Thus does the UK's history begin.  Once upon a time, the UK was founded in the Shire.  It was a happy time, a feudal system gone right, where hobbit ladies in long dresses tossed apples back and forth and tended their sheep while their top-hatted lords alternated between dancing and staring in awe at Kenneth Branagh, who chewed thoughtfully on an unlit cigar and recited passages from his original work, The Tempest.  

Everything was awesome, until one terrible day, the Shire was invaded by a Les Miserables drum corp that had gotten lost during the Rohan leg of their world tour.  

On top of having a terrible sense of direction, the Les Mis drum corp also happened to be evil bastards.  Having spent most of their existence being oppressed by the French, they were thrilled to find themselves in a position to oppress others for a change.  They forced the peasants to destroy the environment and build the city of Zion, so that the future producers of The Matrix Reloaded could save money by shooting on location.

Then came the bad years.  The United Kingdom Zion suffered an infestation of white guys dressed like asians and old guys dressed like soldiers from the American revolutionary war.  All citizens, young and old alike, were forced to spend hours slaving for the Les Mis drum corp, hammering, building, not riding the weird ferris wheel thing. And all the while Kenneth Branagh, who by now the citizens had recognized as being in the league with the drum corp, surveyed the peasants, looked smug, and tried to keep the tip of his expensive imported Cuban cigar (none of that pipeweed shit now that he was playing with the big boys) away from the forge fires, because everyone knows only losers actually smoke their cigars.  All in all, it was a dark time for Zion.  

With the Les Mis whip miserably cracked, the peasants had no respite.  Day in and day out they worked, following the directions of the drum corp in building some monstrosity, the likes of which their serf brains couldn't begin to handle.  Then one day, their work was done--the peasants sat back, and looked upon the poisonous fruits of their forced labor with horror: five giant UFOs, which rose impressively into the skies. 

At which point they exploded, killing everyone, including Kenneth Branagh.  

The drum corp fled into Mirkwood, and Zion burned and smoked for decades, a poisonous, radioactive wasteland.  The surviving hobbits quickly realized Zion would be out for centuries (or at least until the filming of The Matrix Reloaded), and left.  

Part II

We next see the hobbits in the present day, having developed cars and espionage and Daniel Craig to deal in both at the same time.  Daniel Craig, as it turns out, is not only dashing in a suit, he's also the Pied Piper reincarnated, except instead of rats, he gathers corgis and the occasional member of the royal family.  

Then they all get in a helicopter and went for a joyride.  Except for you, corgis.  No helicopters for you.

While Daniel Craig is pulling a Prince William with his handy dandy copter, DanMan clues us in on two important pieces of information.  First, Winston Churchill is alive and posing as one of those street performers who pretends to be a statue.  Second, Daniel Craig is such a hobbit badass, he manages to defy the laws of physics, in that he can jump out a helicopter in the sunshine and hit the air at night.

It is also possible what we have witnessed is the first successful hobbit trip to a different planet. 

Upon landing, the Queen makes a reappearance, but Daniel Craig is gone, and DanMan has no intentions of filling us in on his whereabouts.  Personal theories:

--he turned into a corgi

--he turned into a French revolutionary

--he turned into Kenneth Branagh.

Part III

DanMan has jumped us back in time so we can learn more about what happened to the hobbits fleeing the destruction of Zion at the hands of the Les Mis drum corp's exploding UFOs.  Conditions in the refugee camps lead to an outbreak of typhus, and the hobbits were overcrowded into a makeshift hospital, with not even enough Tylenol PM to ease their broken, typhoid bodies into the afterlife.

With so much typhus, and so little in the way of supplies, the attending hobbits quickly discovered there was little they could do for their patients, except dance.

A brief appearance from J.K. Rowling lifted the morale of those still conscious enough to hear her read from her Harry Potter companion book, Peter Pan.  

But things only got worse for the hobbits.  In what is today still ingrained in their collective memory as "The Black Parade," the hospital was invaded by the Nazeys. An inhuman cross between Sauron's Nazgul and the flying monkeys of Oz, these were the twisted results of Mordor's attempts at genetic purity.  

But this was only the beginning, because commanding this army was the Bonnie and Clyde of Middle Earth.  Of course, I can only be referring to Cruella Deville and Voldemort.

Many of the still-mobile hobbits tried to run, but were killed instantly.  Others were paralyzed in horror, believing themselves to be watching the feverish hallucinations of their typhus-fried brains.  How else could they explain the giant baby lying in the middle of the hospital, surrounded by dancing members of the zombie medical staff?

Luckily, when all hope appeared lost for the beleaguered hobbits, Mary Poppins and her clone army flew in on the trade winds to beat the bad guys to death with their umbrellas.

They were successful, but only because the most powerful dark wizard of all time had an umbrella phobia.  Who knew?  Definitely not Dumbledore, else he could have saved everyone a lot of time and effort.

The surviving hobbits were very grateful to Mary Poppins and her deadly tools, so they stood up on their beds  and began to dance, as hobbits are wont to do when they're suffering from typhus, PTSD, and the wrath of Mordor. 

---------

From there, it's not hard to trace the hobbits' development into the modern age.  They invented cell phones in the fifties, flying houses in the seventies, and accidentally came up with the Power Rangers while trying to build Iron Man.

Al Gore in disguise invented the internet, and a young Albert Einstein taught Mr. Bean to play the piano, although Mr. Bean would clearly prefer to run along romantic beaches at twilight with other men while wearing tighty whities.  The hobbits taught lampshades how to dance.  They invented a strange creature called David Beckham, who demonstrated he could drive a boat almost as well as he could switch soccer teams.  

This resulted in the tragic suicide of the Tower Bridge, a ManU fan who couldn't get over Beckham's betrayal. 

Then the sun rose for the first time since Daniel Craig fucked with it, and the people celebrated by doing a sun dance which eventually turned into an epileptic fit with undertones of child trafficking.

It's safe to say that the UK prospered.  As for Zion, once the radiation levels went down and shooting of the Matrix franchise wrapped, Keanu Reeves moved in permanently.  He's occasionally spotted sitting under the skeletal ruins of the Inn of the Prancing Pony, drinking his morning tea and not making facial expressions.  To the best of our ability to judge these things, he is happy.

And that, my friends, is the true history of the United Kingdom. 

THE END.