It has been brought to our attention that several of our readers have taken offence to anti-social.co.uk's regular taking the piss out of the US of A. Far be it for us to score a cheap laugh wounding the pride of such a great and powerful nation and it's citizenry, oh no.

At first we were ignorant of such distress as we had caused until recently, when over several pints and a few games of darts, nominated Secretary of State Colin Powell broached the subject after throwing a surprise 180 to win the 2nd game.

"You see, lads," the former Gulf War Hero said, "it's like this: When I accepted the nomination, Mr Bush, that is to say George Junior, pulled me aside and had a quite word in my ear. 'Colin,' he said, 'we've got these small problems as you well now. Trade imbalance, a flagging education system, rampant crime, uppity ni- I mean domestic political worries, and to top it off, we've got a pair of troublemakers using a UK based website to make people feel bad about being Americans.' So you can see- Get your nob out of my pint!" [the following 5 minutes were taken up with Colin and Rhombus J arguing over who exactly was the rightful claimant of the beer Rhombus J had dangled his tockley in]

"And it's true," the Vietnam veteran began again, dusting himself off. "While some Americans may take the signs of American Military Might and the global spread of media fueled pseudo-American culture as a sign of 'undeniable american superiority over all humanity', most Americans just try to be themselves. Don't hate us for our fellow countrymen's shortcomings or lack of taste... Or refinement... Or the basic fact that a large minority of them aren't interested in the goings on in the rest of the world." There the conversation ended when Rhombus J finally settled the beer dispute via judicious use of a barstool on Colin's head.

Still, despite the less-than-amicable end of the discussion, we decided to think over Colin's points. We greatly respect the man and consider him the best thing to happen to American politics since Lee Harvey Oswald.

However, we did run across several small points Colin missed, possibly because of unexpected blows to the head. Points that were of a minor concern to us in light of things. Thing such as:

- A major source of our criticism, even discounting criticism of our general anti-US stance, is from Americans. Now, while criticism is par for the course in our business, the concentration of criticism from one country has been a source of... thought for us. We also may have received a rather nasty letter from Poland, but it's hard to tell as neither of us can read Polish. It may have been a great offer on tractor tyres.

- Several persons in the US suggesting we change our 'style' of humour to something more 'American' (whatever the fuck that is) or something that would be more comprehensible/appealing to Americans. We do what we think is funny not follow some dipshit what other people find funny, not from the English, not from Australians, not from Americans, not even from Klingons*. The idea that we change our humour is bad enough, the suggestion we try to cater specifically to one nationality/group is worse, but suggesting we cater to Americans, for whom a bulk of the entertainment industry is geared towards providing for, is infuriating and insulting. Besides, if Jim Carey and Adam Sandler are prime examples of 'American Humour', we want no part of it. In fact, if you find either Jim Carey or Adam Sandler funny, whether you're American or not, FUCK OFF! We don't want your type around here. Go on, sling yer 'ook! The idea of people who like Jim Carey and Adam Sandler also liking us will give both of us nightmares for months.

*[Klingon humour runs much along the lines of:
Bak`k`tarr: My dog has no nose.
Jin`cak: How does he smell?
Bak`k`tarr: Are you saying I would keep an unclean dog?
- Bak`k`tarr then attacks Jin`cak with something very sharp-
::much hilarity ensues::]

- A few BITTER people, who shall remain nameless (and stupid), have had the temerity (it's in the Oxford) to accuse us of being jealous of Americans and would move to the US tomorrow if we could. Only FAME and/or FORTUNE (preferably both) could get either of us to deign to move to the USA. It's nothing personal, but we kind of dig our respective homelands.

- The same people bitching now about our picking on the USA would be laughing their arses off if we were sticking it to Canada, Mexico or Cuba. Go on, admit it... hypocritical cunts.

- We were already aware that the USA fought a war to be independent of the UK (1776-1788). We were also quite aware of the contributions of the USA's military during WWI, WWII and Korea. The seeming need of certain Americans to remind us of these facts is... puzzling... to say the least. Both of us come from countries with adequate education systems to have taught us such things. We also know that the Tokugawa Shogunate was founded by Tokugawa Ieyasu, that the chemical symbol for lead is Pb, and that trying to haggle in brothels is a bad idea.

- Why the hell were people still reading us if they found us so offensive? Did we have some kind of unintended arcane hold over them? Were they the sort of people who HAD to read things they knew would annoy them? Are the American people going to come around to our houses and beat us up?

Now, all that taken into consideration, it would appear we have been lashing out at all Americans because of several complete arseheads, and we're sorry...

Sorry that you:

- live in a country that deserves every ounce of derision it gets;
- can't take a fucking joke;
- think you're important enough to warrant an apology;
- think the rest of the world wants to be like you;
- ever found anti-social.co.uk;
- come from a nation where more than a few citizens think the size of your military reflects their own personal importance in the world;
- read this far and expected us to really mean it;
- have a government that can't stay out of other nations' business;
- don't make cars as well as the Japanese, Germans or Swedes;
- are portrayed in your own media as jokes;
- got your poor widdle feewings hurted;

What more did you expect? Now fuck off.