h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As an American, I have no problems with the U.K.
keeping its monarchy as long as the monarch is a
beautiful young woman. (I adored Queen
Elizabeth in the 1950s and 1960s.)

Nevertheless, I can imagine how some Brits might feel
frustrated with a somewhat antiquated political
system headed by someone who never had to pass an exam
or win an election in order to reign supreme.

Your Prime Minister is simply the leader of the party
that got the most people elected in the previous election.
He (or she) need not care a whit about the voters
who backed candidates from the losing parties. Talk
about being disenfranchised!

So, what would this President do? Would he (or she)
act like some of our American presidents and fool around
with Monico Lewinsky in the Presidential mansion? Or
declare war on much smaller countries that can be conquered
rather easily? (Not that the present U.K. arrangement
precludes that, as the Falklands incident showed .)
Would the President be responsible for signing bills
passed by Parliament? What if the President is illiterate
and can't sign his/her name?

Read a book called "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. That tells you all about the President's purpose.

can i just remind our american friend that the falklands was actually ours and as far as i am aware argentina is in fact a much larger country than ours and didnt argentina start the war with us by invading so was not argentina emulating the U.S.???? i have always wondered what gets taught in american schools obviously not current affairs or geography

Actually, American schools teach:

1. Sports (mostly football and basketball, although several schools dabble in soccer - that is, what the rest of the world calls football - and occasionally golf, bowling, gymnastics (girls only), track, and dodgeball, in which the only goal is to avoid being humiliated. Sports programs in U.S. schools receive the most funding and attention from American educators, who will often interrupt or preempt the school day entirely to hold rallies in support of the various school teams. Academic success is often dependant upon a student's participation in sports activities, and the most generous scholarships to higher education are also sports related.)

2. Study Hall (a universal institution in American schools in which nothing is actually studied, although comic books are occasionally read, I've heard. Study Hall is occasionally used as punishment, although sitting doing nothing particular is an odd, though popular, way to "teach a lesson" to miscreants. In later years we call this "jail" and populate it with dangerous characters to make it more interesting.)

3. English (yes, American schools spend an inordinate amount of time teaching their students a language they already know, and manage to complicate it to the point that many American students refuse to speak or write any semblance of intelligible English at all. This course is, incidentally, not taught to students who don't already speak English - they are provided with classes entirely in, for instance, Spanish so that they have no requirement or opportunity to learn english at all. By the way, in most American schools there is no desire or opportunity to learn any language the student doesn't already know - and when such classes are offered, the students rarely understand or retain anything they've learned.)

4. Computer skills ( a recent addition to the curriculum of many U.S. schools is computer skills, which, like English, most students already know anyway. They have usually already learned these skills at home where, in order to escape their parents, they've locked themselves in their rooms with a computer on which they do actually learn some skills - such as the basic elements of terrorist tactics, illegal computer invasion [hacking], world pornography, japanese weaponry, and, of course, monster destruction.)

5. Extra-curricular Activities (a catch-all phrase that includes everything from cheerleading to choir to chess club. These activities occupy all remaining hours of the day for most students and are memorialized in an annual year book, the preparation of which was once itself an extra-curricular activity, but is these days often outsourced to unscrupulous commercial entities who will spend a half day in the school taking pictures that are supposed to represent the entire school year, and will be sold back to the students through their parents at outrageous prices.)

Current affairs and geography are learned after leaving school and joining the Armed Forces, usually to the inductee's great surprise.