Tim Blair

HARDCORE AWN

Australians in New York are all het up over a sassy acronym, writes Caroline Overington:

The storm centres around Ken Allen, Australia's consul-general in New York, who is a friend of the Prime Minister, John Howard. A tall, effervescent former banker with a penchant for fine Australian wine and fly-fishing, Mr Allen is greatly liked by some sections of the expat community, and disliked by others. Mr Allen and his wife, Jill, appear to have upset some expats by trying to make changes to established social groups.

For example, Mrs Allen has come in for criticism for attempting to change the name of the Triple A's well-established women's group, AWNY (it stands for Australian Women in New York, and is pronounced "aw-knee").

The consul-general's wife said the name sounded too much like "horny" and she was tired of people asking her, in a joking fashion, whether she was "off to a meeting of horny Australian women".

Horny Australian women? Unpossible!