Congratulations.
What a terrific performance.
Many many congratulations, what an exciting night that must be.
So, ladies and gentlemen, something rather different.
Tonight we are celebrating a great British tradition.
And tradition is something we do very well in Britain.
Some of our noblest families go back many many centuries,
and some popped over from Germany a lot more recently.
Perhaps our oldest and most celebrated family of all...
is the Black Adder dynasty.
And now, representing the current generation of malcontents,
please welcome from her majesty's royal regiments of shirkers,
captain
the lord
Edmund
Blackadder!
or a suburban
Your royal highness...
ladies and gentlemen.
The world is changing,
and her majesty's armed forces...
must change with it.
Consider Britain and its position in the world today.
At the beginning of the last century just one hundred years ago
Britain kept the peace in a quarter of the entire globe.
The sun, as they say, never set on the British empire.
Now, what have we got?
The Channel Islands.
The Germans have bought Rolls-Royce,
all the news readers are Welsh,
although that may not be relevant,
and most foreigners think that the union jack is based...
on an old dress design for one of the spice girls.
So what is to be done?
Well the answer to my mind is very simple:
If we are to reestablish our position in the world,
the army must return to its traditional role,
the very reason for which it existed,
in the first place.
We must...
invade...
France.
No no.
No, no, I'm serious.
Our advanced guard of mad cows has already done a superb job.
And the French are in disarray.
Now is the time for actual occupation.
Now you may say, Why France?
Well that's a very good question.
But I can think of three reasons. Firstly,
whenever we try to speak their language,
they sneer at us, and talk back to us in English.
God, they are so irritating.
Secondly,
they deliberately won the world cup...
by maliciously playing better football than us.
And thirdly, simple political strategy.
Look at the history books:
Whenever Britain fought the French...
we were top dog.
For five hundred years, from Agincourt to the battle of Waterloo,
Britain went from strength to strength,
and gained the greatest empire the world has ever known.
The minute we start getting chummy with the garlic chewers,
within three short decades we're buggered.
Hello, obvious connection alert.
So that's the secret.
If Mr. Blair wants us to be at the heart of Europe...
let us simply go to the heart of Europe.
Gather together those submarines which don't leak.
Prime both rifles which do not jam.
Get the army to Waterloo station,
buy fifty five thousand tickets on the eurostar, and invade France.
Or...
we could just wait for the euro to drop a bit more,
and then simply buy the place.
Lord Blackadder, ladies and gentlemen.
Great treat to see him back. And now...