Rule Britannia.

IF you move to Britain, you have to score 75 per cent on a citizenship test to pass, and dear old Dishface has just updated it to make it harder for the riff-raff to get in.

Well I've been here a little over 30 years and I got only 62 per cent. So that's me buying a cat.

Obviously my peasant forebears did not pay enough attention to the rules governing child labour and what dialect is spoken in Northern Ireland.

But then, that kind of thing is of most value if you're running a factory filled with children or trying to keep an uppity province under control, so it's not surprising Dishface's folks found it more useful than mine.

But should he get an attack of Commoners' Sense, here is a set of questions which I reckon will be a lot more pertinent when it comes to deciding whether to make people a citizen of these fair islands.

* Are you any good at rugby?
Yes/No
* How about cricket?
Yes/No
* Do you have a trade?
Yes/No
* Do you have the offer of a job?
Yes/No
* Can you speak enough English to buy a newspaper, watch the TV news, order a takeaway and insult someone in an amusing fashion?
Yes/No
* Do you know how to queue?
Yes/No
* Do you stand on the right on escalators and drive on the left on motorways?
Yes/No
* Will you send your children to school, teach them right from wrong, and keep your garden tidy?
Yes/No
* Can you make proper tea?
Yes/No
* Do you dislike the French, apart from the cheese and the wine?
Yes/No

You need seven positive replies to get your passport but as a supplemental question, in case someone's just below the pass rate and needs to bump their score up a bit:

* Is Dishface an idiot?
Yes/No

"Then you, my love, ARE IN! Where'd we be without rules, eh?"