British Tourism Advertisers Pull Commercials as Pranksters Make New Ones

A £100 million advertising campaign for Britain is about to be replaced by a meme.

As the UK's tourism marketing organization VisitBritain pulls its suit of ads in the wake of the rioting spreading around the country, a new version of the celebrity-heavy ads featuring recent scenes of chaos has popped up in the Internet.

VisitBritain was almost tirelessly airing adds featuring Dame Judi Dench, Dev Patel, Rupert Everett, Twiggy and Jamie Oliver opposite BBC programming outside the U.K. In the ads, the various celebrities repeated the refrain: "You are invited."

On Tuesday the ads were taken off the air.

"We have taken the videos down, they are not appropriate at this time," a spokesperson for the marketing agency told The Guardian.

The rescinded invitation, uncharacteristically rude for the Brits, comes as cities across England are being attacked by mobs of "hoodies."

Travelers willing to gatecrash can still head to London and take part in a touch of looting between wandering the galleries at the Tate Modern and getting Tea at Fortnum and Mason--exactly what this ad (featuring some delightfully inappropriate celebrity voiceovers) by Radio Trip Pictures exhorts viewers to do.

The changing of the guard just got a whole lot more interesting.