Daily Prompt: Viral

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

The New York Times is going to feature your blog on its home page, and you’ve been asked to publish a new post — it’ll be the first thing tens of thousands of new readers see. Write it.

Photographers, artists, poets: show us FIRST.

Zytgloggeturm, Bern

Readers of the New York Times, if you take a pin and stick it into the middle of Europe on your atlas, somewhere between France, Germany and Italy you will find us. Almost eight million people called the Swiss. To be quite honest about a million are not exactly Swiss, immigrants, but since when does New York only have New Yorkers? So we are similar. If you go further and take microscopic view of Switzerland, you will find we have a capital town somewhere in the middle, called Bern and if you blow this up you will find our Zytglogge Turm, a clock tower which draws tourists with their cameras. There are days when you only hear English with an American accent spoken. We also have a parliament building and a parliament, but such trivial matters are not so important. You have a president as well, Mr. Obama, ah yes of course, but he does not live in New York, but in a town named after your first president Mr. Washington.

Who our first president was? No you are wrong, it was not William Tell and Gessler was an Austrian. I know it is all near together and the Hollywood movies showed it differently. We do not wear leather trousers, hit our knees when we dance (both Bavaria, Germany), or make cuckoo clocks, also a German thing from the Black Forest. Julie Andrews did not make The Sound of Music in the Swiss Alps, based on the singing exploits of the Trapp Family, they were Austrian.

Today I am writing to my many fans on the other side of the pond to say do not believe everything you see at the movies or read in the newspapers. Journalism tends to mislead the average reader at the price of sensationalism. If a New York journalist was reporting on the hero deed of William Tell (who may not have existed) when he shot the apple from his son’s head, it would have been illustrated with a photo showing the success of the mission, an apple pierced by a Swiss made authentic arrow. Of course the photo would have been composed by photo shop before William Tell actually took the shot, in case that he missed. Unfortunately many historic truths have been deformed in this way.

Did Davy Crockett really wear a hat made of Coonskin? It looked good in the film.

It is an honour for an Angloswiss to write in this esteemed newspaper, a leading article, having her talents and gifts of journalistic fact reporting at last recognised. This, especially, being a descendant of the original settlers in these United States of America (named after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian citizen).

Due to the fact that the British King lost interest in his American colonies the war of American Independence came to a close in 1783 and the brave colonists in the land of America lead by George Washington, had their own country at last. There was a discussion whether George Washington really did beat the 8,000 British at the battle of Yorktown with cunning and brave fighting, or whether the British had discovered the qualities of bourbon whisky and were an easy pushover when Washington’s army arrived. Who knows, but it was a surprise for all.

However, so it came to pass and I am now writing this award winning article in the New York Times by invitation. Had things been different and this memorable war of Independence had a different result, I would have owned the newspaper and not have to be invited.

On the other hand I would have grown up in a world without MacDonalds Hamburger, Al Capone, Bill Gates, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Dwight D. Eisenhower (the first American president I knew) and not to forget Bill Haley and Elvis Presley, without who The Rolling Stones and Beatles would still have been wondering what to do with their lives. Not forgetting the great Oprah Winfrey. The Swiss are still sorting that out, but it seems there were many misunderstandings and it would be a good idea perhaps for the esteemed New York Times and other American news sources to examine the facts, before further reports on the lady’s visit to Switzerland attending the wedding of her friend Tina Turner.

I will now close this memorable unforgettable tribute to the ex British colony the United States of America. All fees and donations can be paid to my Swiss numbered bank account. Details available through the WordPress Organisation (they are American and might not be interested?). My best selling book can be purchased by visiting the link on my WordPress Blog.

I wish to thank the New York Times for this unforgettable chance to establish my work on the ladder of success, which it deserves.

Daily Prompt: Viral

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