haha yeah, even I know Mencia is a dick and we don't get his shows over here. Rip off artist!

When the wrong people start to use something like 'Paki' thats when it becomes a problem. Too many twats in this country have used it as racist insults against anyone who's from India, Pakistan, bangladesh etc. Like the other week when i was walking through town with my Indian mate, a gang of teenage lads were shouting 'Fucking paki' etc. Apart from the fact my friend is indian and not from pakistan, so their just plain stupid, it does get used a lot in an offensive way.

Does seems like Ofcom over reacted though, the BBC apologised, that should be enough.

"Paki" is definitely derogatory and racist in a British context these days and has been for a long, long time.

It ain't necessarily so in other parts of the world. Indeed there are newspapers on the Indian sub-continent which cheerfully use the term "Paki" without considering it insulting in any way. Check out http://www.pakionline.net for starters.

The "Pak" part of Pakistan is in fact an acronym derived from Punjab, Afghan, Kashmiri.

But like I said right at the start, in Britain it DOES have racist and derogatory connotations. I don't think most Americans have heard the term (whirly's reaction being a case in point) so they probably aren't aware how much offence it can cause in the UK.

I think the jury's out on Iggy on this one. He's no stranger to Britain, he's been coming here since the 1970s, it's hard to believe he didn't know what he was saying.

Oh, I meant Iggy Pop in that last post, not our very own iggy of course. ;-)

Watched a program a while ago about racism in this country. Paki is definately used as a racist term in this country, and paki shop is old talk.

In this program a pakistani person actually pointed out that Paki means Pure, so therefor pakistan means pure land. So there you go kids, a cultural fact on your ass.

Hmm - thanks for chiming in iggy Tyler, si, Thandeka. It is definitely a cultural thing, I see now.

A few months ago here I brought up the thing about people using the word Jap, and how and why it's derogatory here in the States. So I can see how using the term Paki shop is sort of along the same lines in its offensiveness.

In general do you guys feel the BBC handled this properly by waiting a day to issue an apology? Was it too late, too soon, not enough? From where I am so far away it seems it was handled fairly but have there been other similar instances that were handled differently?

I think the BBC reacted fairly, apologising at the time may have been better, but an apology after is not that much different. So think Ofcom is being a bit harsh.

Only in the UK is the term Paki considered offensive.In Australia for instance when they play Pakistan at cricket the commentators always refer to them as Pakis and nobody thinks anything of it.And this is live on air.An abbreviation is all it is.The real ignorance in all of this is the amount of people who call them Pakis even though they may be from any number of other countries.Officialdom too though has gone mad in being so sensitive about this kind of thing.

On a more light hearted note: An Irishman went to the doctor and told him he wanted to be turned into an Englishman."No problem" said the doctor,"but I'll have to remove a quarter of your brain"."Okay", agreed the Irishman.Several hours later when the patient came around after the op he opened his eyes to see a worried looking doctor standing over him."There was a mistake I'm afraid", said the doctor,"instead of removing one quarter of your brain we removed THREE quatrers of it."The patient shot straight up in the bed and with a big grin announced "No worries mate,I'm fair dinkum!"

Sorry.