Even as I write this, I’m concerned that I’m inviting trouble. It’s a very difficult subject but, not being one to bury my head in the sand, I’m going for it anyway. I love the Internet (as you might have noticed) and have been making friends behind the scenes with people from all over the world. I don’t know if they’re black, white, brown, green or purple, they’re my pals. It doesn’t matter. OK, so you sometimes get clues from someone’s name but that’s not the point.

I do not wish to offend anyone but I sometimes feel totally inhibited about what I may or may not write on this site because of the racism issue. I tend to crack jokes about women – because I am one; about men – because I’m married to one; about Scots – again, because I am one; but I am shit scared of doing anything else. It’s because I’ve already had my fingers burned.

Some years ago, I was involved in writing a skit for a New Year’s Ball. There had been an incident reported in the local newspaper about how the pilot and co-pilot had fought over a stewardess during a flight. In the skit, we poked fun at the local airline for that and while we were at it gave British Airways a good slagging off too. The top BA man was present and appeared to enjoy the joke. BUT an Englishwoman who was married to a local man complained bitterly that the skit was racist. We had our knuckles severely rapped.

I have often worked in places, and with other nationalities, where I was the only Scot. Believe me, I know that I am a foreigner amongst them. I get called a “haggis-eater” (I don’t even like haggis) and “Jock”, and people make fun of bagpipes, kilts, you name it – anything Scottish is up for a good ribbing. It doesn’t bother me in the least because it all seems to be good-humoured fun. I join in and act the part. Now that’s the point!

If I poke fun at an Asian, a Jew, or a black person, if it’s genuinely meant as fun then it should be OK. Right? Wrong! Different people define “fun” in different ways. I think that it is the intention which is important – is it intended to be derogatory? But you can’t legislate for intentions and you can’t define “fun”.

It seems to me that part of the problem might stem from the confidence of the other race. The Scots, for example, whilst having been oppressed by the English for years, will never kow-tow. Some other nations, on the other hand, have been subjected to everything from sheer exploitation to paternalistic colonialism. Some do kow-tow and those better educated amongst them quite rightly resent the inference of superiority. But does that mean we can’t have jokes about other races? I sincerely hope not.

One of my favourite comedy programmes is Goodness Gracious Me. It’s a complete send-up of British Asian families. It’s hilarious, but am I being racist by suggesting that they get away with it because they are British Asians? I’m not getting on that ridiculous soap box where people moan that being white, heterosexual etc puts you in a minority, but could we all relax please?

Meanwhile, until or unless I get the OK from some Brits who aren’t of caucasian descent I shall continue to be muzzled.

Where would you draw the line? Have you ever been the victim of racist abuse, or been accused of racism? Comment now and let us know!

Author: Phil McCollum

Phillida McCollum is a freelance writer who specialises in writing about stuff to fill space on BE. [Can't think of anything amusing right now... ho hum]

This month alone it’s been £100 for a new pair of specs, £200 for a crown to replace a broken tooth, £7 for hair dye, etc, etc. I don’t mind being over 40 but I don’t want to be sightless, toothless and greyish. (Grey would be fine, but it’s the half and half which doesn’t suit me.) I feel like an old banger and wonder why my husband (a toy-boy seven years younger) doesn’t trade me in for a younger model with cheaper running costs.

It’s not just the expense of getting older that’s disconcerting. I don’t know if any of you have problems with finding the right words for things. I’ve recently suggested that we should heat something up in the photocopier (I meant microwave) and said “fridge” when I meant… oh, I’ve forgotten whatever it was now.

That’s another thing. You go upstairs for something and when you get there, you haven’t a clue what it was you wanted. It’s only by going back down again that you have any chance of eventually remembering. Not only that; if you’re an expat, Britain seems to metamorphosise every time you’re away.

This can range from unimportant stuff like how they now print your cheques using the till in supermarkets to really important things like being able to buy appropriate underwear. After a few years away, I was stunned to discover that the simple process of buying a bra from M&S was no longer an option.

If you are anything less than a 34C you can buy an enhancer, which is basically what we used to call a padded bra. This is probably better than stuffing tissues down your front as I did in my early teens only to notice a third breast around my navel during a rowdy dance to the latest Slade hit.

If you’re bigger than 34C the only option seems to be a so-called “minimiser”. I wouldn’t mind minimising my bust if they could minimise my stomach to match but that didn’t seem to be on offer. Anyway, I bought the minimiser believing that’s probably how to do it these days. What a horrible thing that was. Basically, its function appeared to be to hide most of the breasts under the armpits. I know that many of our readers are blokes but even you can imagine how that was not at all pleasant.

It’s not even the sort of thing you can easily ask people about either. I mean, if you start enquiring about someone’s underwear, they seem to get a bit suspicious of you. Anyway, if anyone has any advice, please write in. Chances are though, by the time I get any answers I’ll have forgotten the question.

How do you feel about getting older? Why not tell us about it?

Author: Phil McCollum

Phillida McCollum is a freelance writer who specialises in writing about stuff to fill space on BE. [Can't think of anything amusing right now... ho hum]

We heard back in the seventies or whenever, I don’t remember as I never took it seriously anyway, that every man is a potential rapist. Yeah, right. Now it seems to be that every man is a potential paedophile. Er, aren’t men parents too? What about little Sarah Payne’s father? If you had seen how devasted he was about the murder of his daughter you wouldn’t stick that label on him. How would any other father feel? Who cares, it’s just a man. And we all know what men are like.

Almost every day here in the UK there are reports in the news of crimes committed by vigilantes against “paedophiles”. Vigilantes are not the answer but even if they were it would help if they got their facts right first. There have been reported cases of a paediatrician having to go into hiding, an arson attack on an innocent family whose house was previously occupied by a sex-offender, and so on. Are these thugs really intent on making society a safer place?

These days everyone is paranoid, and probably with good reason given the hysteria. I know a talented person who was reluctant to be part of a local committee on a child-related issue after overhearing the following conversation where one woman said to another “…well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Why would any man want to work with kids unless he’s a bit weird? It’s not a man thing, is it?”

I have a friend who owns a school and there is no way she would ever let her (very nice) husband be alone with a child – to protect him. And a couple of weeks back at least half a dozen adults, including me, stood around looking helpless because a small child was blocking the entrance to a shop. No one dared to move the child or persuade it to get out of the way. We all stood helplessly waiting until eventually the parent came to move the child so we could proceed.

What do you think? Why not comment and let us know?

Author: Phil McCollum

Phillida McCollum is a freelance writer who specialises in writing about stuff to fill space on BE. [Can't think of anything amusing right now... ho hum]

Does your name ever cause you hassle? Sometimes even the most innocent name can. Would you believe there’s a TV presenter on a UK gardening programme called Gay Search? I’m sorry, but every time I hear that name I think of phone-lines to contact gay people. It’s probably not the sort of name one would choose to have any more than, say, Yellow Pages.

I’ve had loads of problems with my name, which might appear to be quite straightforward. My parents, allegedly, considered Rochelle and Gay among others but settled on Kay because it wouldn’t be shortened. Wow, that’s a great reason! But I’ll forgive them because it could have been worse. Or could it?

So what’s wrong with Kay? Well, for starters it seems to mean “what” in many languages. In Nepal, for example, when I was introduced it caused no end of confusion. “Her name is what.” Try again. “What is her name.” The people were very embarrassed that they didn’t know who I was – maybe I was famous or something but they, naturally, hadn’t a clue who I was. And, of course, it never occured to them that anyone would have such a stupid name as “what”.

Working with Afghans brought its own problems. It’s polite to use the term Mr in front of the first name so I became Mr Kay, or sometimes even Mr Kay Sir. The nickname followed me to Kurdistan which was fine – I even used Mr Kay as my radio call sign – and I was very used to it. Until one day in the office someone asked, “Why do they call you Miss Turkey?”

I’ve lost times of how many times I’ve been called Key, which is probably the least of my problems. In Kurdistan my name was very close to the slang for “stonking big erection” (if you’ll excuse the term) and the more sensitive of my local colleagues didn’t like to use the name, preferring instead to refer to me as “You know – her with that name”.

Considering I was working for CARE at the time and that was the word, as opposed to just being close, the organisation was frequently referred to by its initials. I confess I enjoyed explaining this to a high ranking official when he visited and (I know it’s naughty to eavesdrop but I couldn’t help it really) also enjoyed it when in typical Aussie fashion he gleefully relayed that fact to Canberra on the sat-phone.

Another odd thing that happened there was that after I had attended a meeting, the person who typed up the minutes may not have been as adept with an electronic typewriter as one might hope, and listed me as Kaaaaaaaaaaaaay. No matter how many times I tried to rectify this, that remained my name on subsequent minutes for several months.

We all know that parents need to take some care in choosing names. I have friends with the surname Long who used to joke that they’d call their first son Miles. Then again, some names may seem fine in one language but a bit rude in others. I’ve heard that Jim is a bit rude in Thai, for example.

On the other hand, when travelling round Vietnam some years ago, my travelling companion was intrigued by the number of shop fronts with a certain word in their signs. When he assumed an air of total innocence and asked a somewhat prim Vietnamese lady “What does *** mean?”, I just cringed. She didn’t even notice and replied “Lucky, of course. It is a very lucky name.” Indeed.

If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em. Dave and I even had an email address for a while as DayVanQue but very few people got the joke so we ditched it. I’d given up worrying about my name, until I was reminded of it all when I received an email from Dave who went to Korea last week. He apparently was mildly surprised to find that one of his middle names was “Joan”. Nice!!!

Has your name ever been changed into something funny or embarrassing? Or have you ever had a colleague or friend with an unfortunate name? Why not comment and share it with the world?

Author: Kay McMahon

Kay has been an expat for over 20 years. She set up the British Expat website more than 10 years ago, whilst living in London and missing the expat life. These days she spends much of her time lugging computers and cameras around the world. (Dave gets to deal with all the really heavy stuff.)

As is usually the case, we worked the “cook-book” system, where the cook has a petty cash float and keeps a little account book to record household expenses. I wasn’t worried that he might take a percentage – that’s normal, after all. But just to keep things under control, it was advisable to run a quick eye over the (alleged) spending before replenishing the float.

On one occasion I was surprised that I had required five packets of “pepper” in a week. Yes, I like pepper – but not that much. I demanded an explanation. “Pepper?” asked Yahoo, bewildered at first. Then he thought harder about his recent shopping trips. “Pepper? I buy toilet pepper,” he informed me indignantly. Of course – how silly of me.

The following week when apparently I had consumed two tons (sic) of tuna, I just let it go. No doubt there would be a logical explanation. However, when I saw that I had paid 5 dinar for one wenker (again sic), I had to question it. It turned out that while Yahoo cooked, it was his son, an English teacher, who cooked the books. The whole office was intrigued by my wenker purchase, but it was several weeks before I discovered it was vinegar.

If I’d ever needed proof of the man’s honesty, though, I got it when I returned home unexpectedly in the middle of the day. Yahoo was standing in the kitchen ironing beautifully clean US dollar notes. I was not a happy camper; what was he playing at? Poor old Yahoo. It turned out that I had chucked a pair of trousers into the laundry basket without checking the pockets first. Instead of the money being lost, thanks to my own carelessness, Yahoo informed me, “I wash them, so now I iron them.” Sometimes it’s just better not to ask if you don’t want to look foolish.

Have you ever come a communication cropper while living overseas? Why not comment and let us know?

Author: Phil McCollum

Phillida McCollum is a freelance writer who specialises in writing about stuff to fill space on BE. [Can't think of anything amusing right now... ho hum]