Former Colonies

There are lots of these, so I'll just look at the bigger ones - America, Canada, Australia and India.

Canada

Canada was invented by the British General James Wolfe.  It did not exist before then, and Wolfe is famous for his metaphysical experiments, where he was able, pretty much at will, to conjur up other possible worlds.  He did this in a lab, using the most basic of ingredients.  One day, whilst trying to create an alternative (NOT bloody 'alternate') universe, he ran out of materials, and Canada was the result.   He noticed immediately that he had negligently included some French ingredients - he managed to remove the French elements from the cultural make-up of Canada, but some crept into the Constitutional elements.   He got his assistant (Hudson was his name) to give the mix a bit of a stir, and what results is a bit of a mish mash.

It has been said that the Canadians could have had the economy of the Americans, the constitution of the British and the culture of the French.  As it was, they ended up with the economy of the British (rubbish), the culture of the Americans (equally rubbish) and the Constitutional set-up of the French (more equally rubbisher still).

Good things about Canada:  It's cleaner than America and only policeman are allowed guns.   It's also BIGGER than America.  Also they know how to build a city properly - I'm thinking of Vancouver.   Compare this to London, which has just been thrown together with no real thought at all.  Finally, everyone seems like bloody nice blokes - take off, eh?

Bad things about Canada:  No-one can tell the difference between an American accent and a Canadian accent.

Australia

Also a bloody big country - 14 times bigger than France.  Again, Australia was invented by the British, captain James Cook.  A Spanish chap called Torres seems to have seen it at some point, but got bored and decided to play football for Liverpool instead, later selling out to Chelsea.  Before Cook there were some other chaps around who had lived there since the dinosaurs, but unfortunately they didn't have a flag, so Cook stuck a Union Jack in the ground and simultaneously invented the 'open prison'.   A bit later, when socialism was invented (also in Britain), rabble-rousing-reds were shipped off to Aus where they couldn't do any more damage.  

Aus is a weird place - it's very big, as I've said, but hardly anyone lives there.  The entire population is about the same as a major city in America or Europe.  And they all live around the edges, cos the middle is just a massive desert.

Good things about Aus:  Since the first settlers, some normal law-abiding Brits have moved there.  The Sydney Opera House.  Also, Russell Crowe - oh, hang on a minute, I think he was born in New Zealand.   

India

The second-most populated country in the world, with over a billion people.  The British went to India in search of a new national dish, as everyone was getting bored with fish and chips.  And so it came to pass that curry was invented.  Before the British, there was no curry in india, but the locals were outgunned by the colonisers, and the only weapon they had at their disposal was the vindaloo.  In case anyone was wondering, you have now discovered the etymology of the British word 'loo'. After a few vindaloos, the British were seen running for the lavatory, and were never seen or heard of again.  

Good things about India:  The vindaloo.   Bad things about India:  The vindaloo.

America

Either the third or fourth biggest country in the world, with China, according to which book you read.  Like Australia, America was explored and exploited by a bunch of weirdos/criminals that the British didn't want.  Within a couple of centuries, these unsavoury characters had built the most powerful nation on earth, eclipsing the British, whose end was marked by the Boer war, where we got our bottoms royally kicked by a bunch of Dutch farmers.

The beginning of the end for this colony was marked by the arrival of one George Washington, a loyal Brit who had waged war on the French succesfully for some time.  The Americans decided that British rule must go, as we very reasonably wanted them to pay taxes.  Admittedly they weren't allowed any MPs...Anyway, we decided to give them their country (our country - in 1777, 77% of the white population of America was English - but they always have American accents in the films...).  The yanks were getting their bottoms kicked quite comprehensively until they invented Gorilla warfare.  This involved recruiting live apes to their ranks, which really was most unfair given that a chimpanzee is about four times stronger than a man.

Also, these damned colonials had the help of our bitterest enemy - the bloody French, (from whom the Americans were to learn the art of turning up late for wars), but it doesn't stop them portraying the French as wife-stealers and scoundrels (albeit that they are).

At some point along the line, Americans got a bit bored with slaughtering the native indians, and decided to fight each other.  Brother was turned against brother in the War of Independence, North vs South.  The Union soldiers wore blue as it camouflaged them effectively against a backdrop of blue mountains and blue grass.  This was to prove the deciding factor, and they won.  What this meant was that Southern plantation owners could no longer procure a pecuniary advantage over their Northern counterparts by using slave labour on their tobacco and cotton farms.  Effective way of keeping your overheads down, mind.  

Now, though, America's hegemony on the world stage is well-established.  Maybe it'll turn out OK though - after all the entire country is now owned by the Chinese, the Indians, and the oil-rich middle east.

Good things about America:  The Simpsons, Jessica Alba.   Bad things about America:  Everything else