Dear Our Beloved Microsoft,

We have lots of money (no not really. We are broke, but we will act like we do by raising taxes again). Would you be a dear and extend personal Windows XP support to us, please? We were lazy and choose not to upgrade our 64,000 computers running Windows XP and ignored the fact you were discontinuing the 12 year old operating system until the last minute!

We need you to extend support to us so we can take a full year to upgrade "most" of the machines to Windows 7 or Windows 8. We will pay you large amounts of money for your kind and thoughtful generosity.

Affectionately Yours,

The UK Government

P.S. The Netherlands also wish to have personal Windows XP support. They will send their own petition. But just between you and me, darling, be a dear and grant them their request too, please sugar baby?