London, April 6 -- An hour into a news conference on Iran's stunning release of 15 British marines and sailors it had captured in the Persian Gulf and held for almost two weeks after repeatedly saying "Nih, Nih, Nih," two British marines emerged from the mountains of the Falkland Islands and surrendered to local authorities in a dramatic end to the decades-long dispute between the UK and Argentina over the strategically insignificant but wool-rich island chain known locally as Las Islas Malvinas.
Argentine authorities immediately declared victory to the long-simmering dispute and closed the banks, devaluing the peso for the sixth time this year. The Argentine military countered with a full dress parade in Buenos Aires featuring full dresses, live rounds, & the periodic overthrow of the elected government, and featured the Britons, Captain Bruce Lesney and Lieut. Lesney Bruce with their common law wives, Dolly and Estelle, taken while living in the mountains.
The team surrendered after local Catholic schoolgirls threatened "imminent verbal taunting" with respect to their nontraditional lifestyles and out-of-date shoes. "We knew it was coming, it was only a matter of time," said Bruce, a Hegelian philosophy major before the war. "After years of isolation - language, culture, delicious English cooking - my self esteem, always fragile, just couldn't take that kind of pounding. Not again," said Lesney, a legal clerk by profession.
One potentially embarrassing incident was narrowly averted when Estelle refused to join the party in the back of the parade truck. She was eventually coaxed up the ramp with some fresh greens and a medium-sized carrot offered by the director of Buenos Aires Agricultural Assn. (BAAA) who has taken Dolly & Estelle into his heart, under his wing, and into his barn.
Calling their release an Easter gift to the British people, Argentine President Nestor Kirchner said, "go and sin no more." Kirchner, a movie buff added, "leave the gun, take the Woolite." The Britons were also offered candy, gaucho pants, and Madonna CDs of Evita, the national anthem.
"I'm glad that our two steadfast service personnel have been released, and I know their release will come as a relief not just to them but to their families," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Thursday outside his Downing Street Office.
Blair did not define what he meant by "families" nor did he speculate how they might take to the heroic holdouts' new "wives."
Lady Margaret Thatcher under whose leadership in 1982 the armed forces of the UK boldly reclaimed and stout-heartedly invaded the Falkland Islands at the far reach of the British Empire, upon hearing of the surrender was overheard to mutter, "bloody f*cking poofters!." Ann Coulter was not immediately available for comment.
