Can anyone confirm
the veracity of this story told to me by a friend's mum:

She worked at one point for Hounslow Council, and they once wanted to change the name of the borough from Hounslow to Hounsfast...
(jizzools, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:28, 3 replies)

Odd one out
After I graduated from uni I ended up getting a job opposite the uni and in dire need of cheap accommodation I managed to get a place in the student halls. I'd already lived there 3 years but all my flat mates had moved home.

So I ended up as the 5th person in a flat with 4 Asian lads. Was a bit odd but not too bad.

Anyway, one day my mate in round and we're all having a natter in the living room and got onto the topic of shops and so on when my mate blurts out "Yeah, just nip down the paki shop!".

Everything goes quiet, you could hear a pin drop and in the room are about a dozen faces staring at my mate. I thought he was gonna get lynched!

Then my Indian flatmate pipes up... "Don't worry, I call them paki shops too".
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:25, Reply)

Anyone remember that 70s TV show?
It was called "There's a Jew in my Shower!" In fact, I have it here and I'll copy the episodes verbatim from the VHS video box:

1) Holy Spear-Chucker - Reg comes home from the pub to find that a negro has moved into the ground floor flat. The dark-hued one is a Zambian bushman called Bonga-Bonga who has come to work at the local bank. He carries a spear everywhere, wears a grass skirt and has a bone through his nose. Hilarity ensues when Bonga-Bonga mistakes Reg's gift of a plane ticket back home as an invitation to have coitus with Reg's teenage daughter Sharon.

2) Not in My Backyard - Reg returns from the betting shop to discover that a gypsy encampment has been set up in his back garden. The smelly travellers have brought horses with them and they've shat all over Reg's prize tomatoes. Watch the craziness unroll as Reg sandbags his house and buys a high-powered rifle to pick them off one by one at night with a night-vision scope and dum-dum bullets.

3) Achtung Mein Fuhrer - Reg goes to the chiropodist, only to learn that Dr Heimsheim is of the Jewish persuasion. Cue a number of humorous situations as Reg struggles to eat a kosher chip butty, avoid a circumcision, sing "If I was a rich man" - and put his foot in it with inadvertent references to gas chambers and lampshades. Contains the famous scene where Reg loses his toe.

4) Chink Wop Nigger Paki - Reg is invited to the United Nations to speak on behalf of his working men's club in Rotherham. There, he discovers that the place has been overrun with foreigners of different colours, none of whom can speak English properly. Laugh yourself nauseous as Reg lets loose with a torrent of Tourette's-style racism and goes on a murder spree with a 12-bore shotgun until local police sedate him with a horse dart.

6) Reg's Ripped Arse - Reg finds himself in a Turkish prison, where he is befriended by a series of non-English men who use his arse in a homosexual fashion until poor Reg can't walk anymore. Then he's treated by Gupta, the Indian medic who mistakes Reg's gargles of pain for laughter and who therefore doesn't give him any painkillers. By mistake, his arse is sewn up and he has to shit through his ear.

7) Buried Alive - Owing to a mix-up at the cemetery, Reg finds himself in a coffin full of African bees. Laugh yourself epileptic as he is buried alive by a group of offended ethnic folk who urinate on his grave as they burn his house and do native dances. Reg's daughter Sharon gives birth to a brown baby and invites Bonga-Bonga's 234-strong extended family to live in Rotherham.
(frankspencer, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:22, 9 replies)

We are banned from useing the word...
..."abort". As in to "Abort the transaction" or "Abort the install".

Apparently "abort" is offensive to Americans as it reminds them of "abortion".

Sheesh.
(SpangleDangle >->)))'>, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:17, 6 replies)

some terms have a loaded meaning in one country
while being a harmless contraction in another. when i came from australia and first started working in london after watching a cricket match on the weekend, I yelled across the office to a south african work mate: "Did you see us beat the Pakis on the weekend?"
I got put in front of a disciplinery board and tried to explain that "paki" had no more negative association than "aussies" or "windies" in australia and was used in cricket ads on the telly. But each time I used the word I could see them cringe like i'd flung a turd on their desks. I kept my job but it was a quick lesson.
( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:15, 3 replies)

When I started my uni course.....
....we had a couple of people turn up and talk to us all about a mentoring scheme they ran. They talked to us for about 15 minutes and we were all thinking how good it sounded.
Then they told us that it was only open to black or asian students.
We were all white.
We pointed this out and were told that maybe we should think about how we could encourage more black students on to our course.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:13, 1 reply)

Oh... Forgot this one....
At work we are not allowed, nay banned from using the word...

Feedback

as it is negative language and may offend someone.

We have to use

Feed-Forward

I had a coach come to give me some 'feed-forward' about something and I stopped her..

Her: I'd like to give you some feed forward about a call i just listened to of yours

Me: Oooh, goody, i've never been in a time machine

Her: WTF

Me: If you are about to tell me about something i've done wrong previously this is FEEDBACK. If you want to tell me off for something I am yet to do that would be FEEDFORWARD despite it not ACTUALLY being a word.

Her: Hmph
( FlexAlux laughed at something inappropriate on, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:09, 5 replies)

Music
I used to perform The Clock Symphony whilst wearing a turban. Would they let me promote myself as "Haydn Sikh"?

Would they bunnies.

Instead, I had to use a creation of Roger Hargreaves, with a frown drawn on it's flaccid penis.

It's Mr Tickle's erectness gone sad! I tell ya.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:09, Reply)

At work, the play-out system runs on two computers simultaneously: the 'master' and the 'slave'.
These are terms now deemed un-PC (although when, by who and why has never been discovered, so it's probably untrue). Still, we now call them 'butcher' and 'mincer'.
(rnuk http://flickr.com/rnuk, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:04, 3 replies)

grr
In the build up to the elections a couple of years back, I attended a fund-raising event. A couple of guys were going around with buckets to ask people for spare change, but some people complained and said they'd already donated.

The two guys went ballistic. They pulled out a couple of handguns and shot half a dozen people, before setting fire to the place and then shooting themselves.

That's my experience of political collectors gone bad.

Length? With a bit of heavy petting and a roller-skate, I can do a good impression of R2D2.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 16:01, Reply)

Makes my blood boil
I am a Sikh and I was working on the International Space Station recently. NASA said that because I was a Sikh, I was to wear a turban in case other Sikhs saw footage of me without one and could be offended.

I protested, saying that my space helmet wouldn't fit over it, but they were having none of it.

According to the roster, it was my turn to go outside and fix stuff. So I had to go outside, with no helmet and just a turban to protect me from the cold vacuum of space.

That certainly made my blood boil, I can tell you.

As lengthy as my inverted trachea and distended colon.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:56, 1 reply)

An equal opportunities employer...
Working in IT I'm more than concious that predominently (but not exclusively!) is an industry staffed by white males, probably closely followed by Asian males.

In fact of the probably circa 200 - 400 colleagues I've worked with in IT over the years you could count the women on your fingers.

Anyway, whilst working for the Open University my colleague put in his notice when the big bucks beckoned from the real world. After adverts etc had been done interview day came around, always a laugh as we (being professionals) would sit the interviewee with their back to the glass wall in the interview room and then make gestures at the interviewer facing us in an attempt to make them laugh and put off the potential employee. yeah, nice i know!

Anyway the boss, a tall stern Scotsman, is grumpy and upon enquiring I'm told;
"It's been pointed out we're the only sub dept who don't have a woman on the staff!"...

Followed by words that I will remember forever more....


..."So now all we need is to interview a black one armed lesbian and we're home free!".


Genius. Sadly the boss dropped dead one morning and is greatly missed as the nicest boss I've ever had.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:56, 1 reply)

PC? What PC?
Folks, PC is like a mythical beast prowling around Dartmoor. No-one ever sees it, only vague tracks, and the odd missing sheep. It is defined by its effects, not by being anything. Yes, I’ll get to the point in a minute.

In ye olden days, people were nasty to other people for rather crude reasons i.e the colour of their skins.As time progressed, we got more sophisticated and expanded it to involve people who liked touching other people of the same gender’s naughty bits. And so on. So some well-intentioned people devoted considerable time and energy to sorting this out with a whole bunch of laws ‘n shit. And by and large it seemed to work. Not a magic bullet, but things gradually got better. As someone who grew up in the late 70’s/early 80’s in Jockland with a Bangladeshi fostersister, I can guarantee you that.

And then…the PC thing. Just like Health and Safety, it is used as an excuse by the incompetent, the lazy and the exploitative to make sure that no-one can do anything, ever. It’s not the legislation, it’s the interpretation, usually by cretinous public employees/ HR pillocks desperate to justify their own existence and often publically funded role in ‘Multicultural Britain’.

Hanyway, here’s the good bit, and the heart of the con. The screaming headlines about PC gone mad/immigrant geese ate my hamster sell papers. Lots. And we go for it every time. It’s a self-perpetuating monster, as companies, councils and so forth believe the myth and introduce even sillier policies to avoid offending anyone, ever. When you throw Merkins and their ridiculous legal system into the equation, then things start getting even sillier. If you go back to the original well-meaning legislation, it doesn’t ban hanging baskets. Or Christmas. Or anything, much, apart from being irrationally nasty to people.

However, the industry (which is what it now is) depends not just on Guardian reading Lesbian Dwarf Outreach Diversity Consultants from Islington, but also the Daily Heil reading ‘disgusted of Bournemouth’, and all of us who go along with the myth like sheep.
There are those who play the system, and play it well. Some of the nastiest pieces of work I have experienced have been of an ethnic persuasion, who used the race/religion thing as the 100% universal get out of jail free card. However, I have met just as many pale anglo types who equally nasty, unscrupulous wastes of oxygen.

These people who implement the ever more ridiculous policies should be fed into a woodchipper. Anti-Discrimination is a noble cause, but someone who spends their entire life looking for things that might offend someone needs to be kept away from sharp objects. And then pushed off a cliff. Don’t believe them. Political Correctness hasn’t gone mad, but those who worship at it’s feet have.

Viva la revolucion!

(Oh, and try and be nice to nice folks, and tell the twattish ones what they are, and stuff like that)

Apols for length and rambling, as Mr Street-Porter once said.
(osok Rebel without a clue, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:39, 2 replies)

antisocial network sites
Accuser: you can't write "gay!" on someone's wall on Facebook!
Me: he is gay
Me: and he called me gay first, so nyah
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:36, Reply)

my own fun
i get load of pleasure winding up my mates boyfriend whom is a racist, and would be homophobic if he wasn't gay.

Its so funny to hear him, a madeira born migrant to our fair shores, complaining about the "bloody foreigners blah blah blah" and "shes so fat......" and laughing at dwarves.

And i occasionally use the term "gay" as south park intended and i do feel bad about it.

He doesn't understand PC at all. To him it simply does not exist. And he certainly doesn't see why him calling a spade a spade (no pun intended) should be a problem.

This is why when out in public i like to whisper things to him that are both reprehensible and wrong on many levels. He then explodes with laughter and screams all sorts of non-pc phrases.

Shame on me. He can't help it. I can, and just don't mean it.

And he loves the daily mail. And believes what nurses tell him as gospel truth.
( bazza van der trance , ooh baby baby, baby baby. Get up on this., Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:22, 1 reply)

Cola wars
When we write console games, they get checked over for anything offensive to our target market. Normally this is a good thing.
A few years ago, one of our games comes back from the head testers in the US with a big tick next to "FAILED - Racist/Offensive Content" on the front of the report. We read the details.
"In the subway level, there is a red and white vending machine, with the word 'Cola' written on it. As you may be aware, cola is the plural of colon. Some people may find it offensive to find a mention of such a body part. Please remove this immediately."

It was suggested that perhaps we couldn't hold ourselves repsonsible for someone who must be offended by just about every soft drink machine in the world. We had to remove it anyway. So we spent the next few months asking each other if we wanted a can of colons while we were passing the fridge.
(ShowPony, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:20, 10 replies)

I love political correctness
because it means tories have to think of new ways to thinly veil their bigotry.
( hypnochimp, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:09, Reply)

May not be a racist, but she does get around...
In the local paper was this...the story is about 30-year old man was racially abused and assulted by her neighbour

"She was calling me a smelly paki and a nigger and to go back to Iraq and Afghanistan. I felt sad for her, I was born in Kuwait and been in this country since I was three"

She denied being racist or making racist remarks - "I was very drunk but I'm not a racist. I've been with a half-caste and a negro. In terms of boyfriends I've had every race under the sun"

Not only did she used the words "half-caste" and "negro" in a Magistrates court, but her argument that she isn't a racist is based on her having slept with a man of every different race...that's quite a few isn't it?
(abmm, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 15:04, 4 replies)

ref: Buzzcocks
Person 1: My mum reads the mail, but she says only because thge ink doesn't come off on her hands.

Person 2: You know why that is, don't you?

1: No, why doesn't the ink come off on your hands.

2: Becasue it's stuck down with hate!
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 14:54, 1 reply)

racist political correctness
My cousin Dave had filled in a job application a couple of years back, and for race, ticked "other". he received a phone call from the business in question stating that although he had ticked the box, he had neglected to fill in the field as to his actual race. Dave says, "well my mum was Mauritian and my dad was from London", to which the employer replies, "ah, so you're pigmentally challenged then?"
this prompted some rather sharp comments and a hang up of the phone.
(alchohol, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 14:52, Reply)

Non PC where I work
Which is in the back of beyond (the arse end of nottingham)

One of the designers where I work kept making comments about my 'kinky' boots (I wear knee length boots when I have a skirt on to cover up a big tattoo on my leg) and then progressed to asking me if I was a Nazi

"Seeing as I'm half Jewish I think that's unlikely don't you" I shot back...

to$$er slunk off red faced

This is why pc has got so OTT - people are stupid.
( curvylittlegoth heard the voices in your head on, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 14:44, Reply)

Schoolyard racist
My last boss got called into his daughter's school one afternoon because she was due to be disciplined for a 'racially-aggravated' insult.

Turns out she'd been overheard calling her (white) friend a "pooh".

She's 9.
(pharmatron Death or Scunthorpe? CHOOSE!!, Fri 23 Nov 2007, 14:36, 2 replies)