Tim Blair

Bought condoms for a friend - honestly! - who was too embarrassed to buy them. Ran into my prom date's mom at the check out counter. Oops. I actually had her home by 10PM on Prom night.

I once overheard a Jewish comedian make the following joke: "Why do Jewish men die before their wives? Because they WANT TO."

Amused, I pointed it out to my girlfriend, Tasha. Some days later I was meeting her family for the first time, at a Thanksgiving dinner. Everybody was having a nice conversation and the people started telling jokes. Tasha encouraged me to tell that joke. I demurred, and told another one instead. She insisted on hearing the Jewish joke. So I told it.

Everybody except her noticed the uncomfortable silence. So she was a little puzzled when I asked her about it on the way home. But after a bit more polite questioning, she matter-of-factly informed me, "Oh, maybe it's because Janet (her sister-in-law, who was also there) is Jewish."

Faux pas? I don't commit them. And if I do, I don't admit it.

Junior year in college. Just turned 21 and we're headed to the St. Patrick's Day parade in New York. We had money for food or booze, not both.

Millions of people there. We stood in front of a friend's girlfriend's office building. The Jack Daniel's kicked in with a vengeance. The cap rolls into the middle of Fifth Avenue, and I need it for the ride home. Perfect time to black out, which I did for the one and only time in my life.

I run into the street (somebody told me later about the huge marching band I tried to tackle to keep that cap in one piece). To this day I don't know how we got home -- I was driving five people in a VW Bug -- but also to this day those guys won't drink with me without telling that frickin' story.

The Faux Pass, I think I hiked there once. We got snowed in and had to eat one of the fatter members of our group. All very embarrasing!

Talking with someone, actually I was RANTING about how "retarded the Kerry campaign was, was it was run by a handful of retards, my god, what kind of retard would say..."

Of course, the one guy in the crowd I didn't know all that well mentioned that he preferred Kerry because his proposed health-care plans would help him better care for....his developmentally-disabled daughter.

slink slink slink away

At my buddies second wedding, his best man had to take his outrageously drunk wife home to puke. My buddy turned to me and asked if I would mind giving the toast.

Gregarious sonofabitch that I am, I did. It was a good one, too.

Until I got to the end and said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Shannon and Shawn [Last Name]!"

Shannon was the name of the first wife. The new wife was named Patricia. They're divorced now, too.

In a parking lot in Minnesota in the winter, I was stepping out of my truck when a car pulled in directly across from me. A young, beautiful blond stepped out into the freezing air in only a t-shirt and jeans. She had left her headlights on, and being the nice person that I am I was going to tell her. Unfortunately, what I said was, "Excuse me miss, your nipples are hard." It didn't go over well.

It's a rainy night and I'm working at a discount store as a cashier. A middle aged woman sets down a package of Depend undergarments explaining they are for her elderly Mom. Whatever, I think as I ring her up and she completes the transaction. As she's leaving I tell her to stay dry! It was raining!!! She clutched her package and hurried away.

Unfortunately, what I said was, "Excuse me miss, your nipples are hard." It didn't go over well.

Ha! That reminds me of the time me and a friend saw this gorgeous woman walk past.

I said, "Hey, that's an unusual hairstyle she's got."

My friend says casually, "Yeah, I've never seen breasts like that."

Talking with a senior VP at work, he mentioned that his daughter was thinking of studying political science when she went to college that semester. I knew she was very sharp and could probably get in anywhere, and said "Well, as long as you don't send her to some sissy Ivy League school where they'll fill her head with liberal horseshit instead of giving her a good solid foundation." Uncomfortable silence. "So where's she going?" asks another colleague.
The answer: Princeton.

I was working in a really conservative family-owned department store in the south. I was a salesman in the electronics department, and I occasionally worked on a computer belonging to the manager's husband. He began to call on me whenever he had a technical question. At one point, (this is in the middle '90's, the age of dial-up) he was trying to join some on-line commuunity or other, the kind of thing you had to dial into a special server to chat with/send email to the members. I don't remember the name, let's call it "Bob's Place". So when he begins having trouble getting his connection to them working, he calls me. "Ever heard of an online service called 'Bob's Place'?" He asks. I reply, "Oh, yeah, you're trying to join one o' them swinger groups, eh? Me, too!" There's this shocked silence. I figured I'd really offended the guy. I quickly laughed and told him I was kidding, and we got into the technical problem. I then forgot all about it until a few days later, when I suddenly came over all curious about "Bob's Place", and did a little research on it.

It WAS a swinger group. Yikes.

Once my son was involved in a scam that ripped billions of dollars off a poor and impoverished nation, and then I stonewalled all attempts to get to the bottom of the scandal.

And I didn't lose my job!

One that sticks in my mind concerns the absolute low point of my life, when I spent almost 30 days (!) working retail. Now, when I was a lad, we had a close family friend who was Afrikaaner, and I became familiar with the accent (which is not heard on a daily basis in Texas, needless to say). So one day I was waiting on a customer in this hardware store; priding myself on my ear for accents, I thought I detected something odd in her speech, and asked her if she was from South Africa.

But no, it turned out that she had musular dystrophy.

I can certainly understand your embarrassment, Kofi. Twenty-one billion smackers - we're talking serious cabbage. That makes you the biggest crook of all time, I imagine. Not bad for a humble diplomat.

Oh, by the way, where is the money these days? Switzerland? The Cayman Islands? Just curious.

A friend of mine once went to a family get-together to meet his girlfriend’s born-again Christian parents. He was pretty nervous and started drinking heavily, he must have overdone it because he got paralytic and ended up throwing up on the front lawn, in full view of his girlfriend's horrified family.

An ambulance was called and he was in hospital for 2 days with alcohol poisoning.

And he told me a story about a bogan friend of his (now we're into faux passes of friends of friends) who shit himself one day, then phoned him up to tell him about it. "Mate I couldn't believe it, went to fart, fuckin' followed through. Mate, I couldn't believe it!" I couldn't believe it either, why phone up people you know to tell them about it? And this was apparently right after it happened, like he couldn't wait to get on the phone to let people know.

I'm not sure this really counts, because I was only guilty of a pas faux pas: my sister and I picked up a friend of hers at the airport. The friend asked whether it had rained much lately, and I said "No, it hasn't rained in a coon's age!" The friend was black, and while she seemed unoffended, my sister was convinced (and I think managed to convince the friend) that I had uttered a terrible racial epithet. I tried to tell them it referred to the age of a raccoon, but I was not in a position to be persuasive.

Tell me about it Kofi. I was stupid enough to believe my friend Jacque Chirac when he said he wouldn't let the cowboy invade. And then my dumb sons have the nerve to actually die fighting, while the US Army pulled me out of a freakin' hole in the ground. Boy did I look like a shmuck.

I was out campaigning one day when someone from the crow asked if I supported the troops in Iraq. Well, I had to size up the crowd as I usually did before answering questions and sensed the need to say "I voted for funding the troops". Geesh, just as it rolled off my tongue I knew the bloggers would have a field day with that answer so I added "before I voted against it".

Well, the bloggers had a field day anyway as did the rest of the civilized World. Needless to say I lost the election in spite of myself.

I have done the "when is the baby due?" question to a woman who was just fat.

There is nowhere to go after that and the fury is beyond belief.

Hint for younger players, I don't care if they are actually delivering quads in your front room. never ask when the baby is due. it just isn't worth it.

Not my faux pas but someone I know. She was going to go out to lunch with a black friend in her office (she was, and still is, white). When 11:30 rolled around her black friend came up to her desk with 2 of her black friends to let her know that she couldn't go out today, how about another day.

The white lady mocked being offended and told her, "You reneger" which the 3 black ladies heard as "renigger". Needless to say, the lunch date was postponed for quite a while.

Well, it wasn't mine exactly. I was an officer in a local Junior Commerce organization and arranged for a state officer to come give a pep talk. The chapter was recently rebounding, gaining new members but most of them seem to be a bunch of obnoxious never-do-wells.

I had great expectations about the visit, instructing all members to be present. We even brought sandwiches and refreshments. The officer was fifteen minutes late and gave as his explanation that he had a bowel movement that so large it didn't want to exit. He described his discomfort and efforts to resolve the problem in graphic detail. I'm talking ten to fifteen minutes here. All given with a big smile, thinking it was right good fun I suppose.

It really didn't get much better than that. I thought it best to treat him cordially and thanked him for travelling all the way from the state capital. I'll never forget how after he left the most crude obnoxious individuals spoke with distain, describing how disgusted they were. They seem truly shocked. This coming from men who routinely competed as to who could belch the loundest.

I thought to myself, well even the most course individuals have their limits.

When I was running Warner Brothers, I green-lighted Alexander. Boy, was my face red!

I used to wait tables at a local chain here in the Northeast US. One day I got a group of English tourists in my section, and we got along swimmingly until dessert: one of them ordered a "Royal Banana Split" (the actual name of the sundae). My instant reply was, "Ah - the Charles and Di Special." (This was in the midst of the fairytale divorce proceedings.)

Luckily they all laughed, and part of their tip was a genuine English shilling, circa 1948. They also left a note: "Be careful when you make fun of the royals!"

PS - the same restaurant also has a sundae called the "Happy Ending," and fortunately I never had anybody get the wrong idea about THAT.

Apart from my whole life being a faux pas (is that French for f***king pus-bucket flipping nong?) of gigantic proportions, I remember asking someone whether they going for the new fashionable bald look. I suppose if you consider getting a life-threatening disease the latest fashion style he may well have been. I don't think he is around anymore to ask him the question again.

Apart from my whole life being a faux pas (is that French for f**king pus-bucket flipping nong?) of gigantic proportions, I remember asking someone whether they going for the new fashionable bald look. I suppose if you consider getting a life-threatening disease the latest fashion style he may well have been. I don't think he is around anymore to ask him the question again.

Perhaps my greatest and most repeated faux pas, however, is sending the same comment twice, when once was probably too much.

Sorry, am a technological luddite, idiot, fool and joke to myself and the Australian nation. Would move to another country, but think that I would probably have to live next to Margo Kingston, John Valder and other assorted types who promised to leave after Howard won again.

A few years ago I was in a nightclub far from home and saw one of my soldiers with a stumbling, uncoordinated young lady unable to walk under her own steam. He picked her up and announced they were going home before carrying her off the dance floor.

This sort of behaviour was both unacceptable and out of character, so I warned him not to do anything silly as she was too drunk.

His reply, sir meet my cousin Rachel, she has MS.

A friend of mine, straight out of university and working for a large firm, got hammered during the week and went to work with the mother of all hangovers. The first item on his day's agenda was to attend a group meeting to which the MD was going to address. He arrived at the meeting early and sat down but immediately started to feel very ill. To distract himself, as other people were arriving, he stood up and started perusing the artwork on the walls. This didn't work too well. He got a tap on his shoulder from his boss introducing him to the MD who had just arrived. He turned around to meet the MD with his hand over his mouth trying vainly to stop the flow of vomit which was leaking between his fingers.

When he was younger, a PR guy in Melbourne (who shall remain nameless)went to visit his girlfriend's family on their farm. The last time he had been there, the father had been moaning about the rabbit plague, and when he arrived this time (more drunk than normal), he spied a grey blur bolt in front of him. With the lightning reflexes of a former schoolbuy football star, he lashed out with his foot and caught the critter a disabling blow.

Then, having picked up a nearby spade and given it a couple of whacks just to be sure, he realised his girlfriend's mum was screaming and shrieking on the verandah.

He'd just killed her Persian pussy.

The relationship foundered after that.

"I have done the "when is the baby due?" question to a woman who was just fat.

There is nowhere to go after that and the fury is beyond belief."

That's the great thing about woman - they get angry at you for that.

Personally, I would be mortified and go on a fucking diet.

I had a friend who was walking down the street, urgently revising his Learner Drivers Manual before the test, when he failed to see the newly laid cement footpath ahead and took a dive in in front of a passing group of school girls.

When I asked my future father in law, who is French, for the hand of his daughter in marriage, I messed up the translation and asked him if I could marry his son!

I was at a department store with my girlfriend Angela. Ran into my ex-girlfriend Kim's sister. Said hi, made some small talk. Angela was a bit sour, since she felt a bit threatened by Kim. Introduced Angela to Kim's sister. Now Angela looked particularly pissed. We took our leave, and I got the silent treatment. After 20 minutes, I said, "What's the problem?" Angela said, "You introduced me as your girlfriend KIM!"

D'oh.

Turned out OK, though. We've been happily married for twelve years. Though she wasn't too happy to learn recently that Kim has a baby boy named
David...

(haven't seen her in fifteen years! Honest!)

I have a terrible problem with remembering names sometmes even with people I am very familiar with so I often use a "generic" to get by.

When working at the Dept of Aboriginal Affairs in Canberra many years ago I had a lot to do with Charlie Perkins. One morning I passed him on the stairs entering the building and in one of my brain blanks I greeted him with "Morning, Jacky".

If looks could kill.

I still chuckle about it.

When I was in India a few years back an English nurse asked me where my girlfriend was. I replied "In bed with a wog". She was surprised at how sanguine I was about the situation.

The worst faux pas I ever heard of was one bloke who posted a long and interminable article complaining about some California Law School (or Diploma Mill) on an Australian blog.

It was interesting, courteous, and the guy may have had a case, but there's a time and place, and this wasn't it.

One of our machinists was living in a motor home parked behind the office building, then one day it wasn't there any more. A technician asked him where it was.

"A safe place," he replied.

"So where is that?" she persisted.

"A SAFE PLACE," he repeated.

I said the first thing that came to mind, "Oh, where the repo man can't find it, huh?"

Strained silence...

"I have done the "when is the baby due?" question to a woman who was just fat.

I had that happen to me once, when my third baby was six months old. I smiled and said, ``No, I'm just fat.'' I was a bit embarrassed but my questioner was more so.

BTW Crusader - I wonder if your initial guess wasn't the correct one, and ``This is my cousin Rachel, who has MS'' was a quick invention by a solider who didn't want to get into trouble.

Once when I was visiting back home, I was out eating lunch with my best friend since elementary school and a guy friend she'd brought along. For some ungodly reason I brought up a story this girlfriend had told me about another of our elementary school pals: that she was so skanky that after she had a baby she didn't even wait to get her stitches out to have sex with some retard. Dead silence. Yeah, he was the guy.

I was bitchin' to a colleague about the politically correct gov'mint rules which decreed that a website we were setting up had to have embedded verbal descriptions of every visual image so that blind people weren't being discriminated against: the site was about an artist, ferpete'ssake, I cried! She quietly confided that she had a young son who was blind.

In Gawler (SA), also known as the ghetto-of-the-damned, I saw a (what appeared to be) perfectly capable individual drive into a parking spot for the disabled.

Enraged, I stormed over and gave him a good telling off. At that point, with a grin on his face, he opened the car door to reveal the fact that he had no legs.

What topped it off was that his dog, sitting beside him, had its back legs missing.

I apologised and ran back to my car - fast.

I also had a friend who got on the tram to work one day and got annoyed with some school-kids sitting while adults were standing (in Oz, if you are a student, you pay less hence you have to give your seat up to full paying adults).

She said 'excuse me' a couple of times but the kid ignored her. She got annoyed and grabbed the paper from the kid and yelled 'Can I have your seat please?'.

It was only then that she noticed that boy was from the Victorian School for the Deaf. She disembarked from the tram the very next stop.

Getting drunk and mentioning that Asian have smaller wangs on average than caucasians with my husbands best Chinese friend sitting next to me.

He was drunker than I was though.

I wished I could have fallen through the floor.

Hamsters: Asians do get pissed more easily. Nature's way of not over-taxing those little wangs.

The Scene: Raymond Terrace

The Time: Last year, middle of the day

So, I'm walking along the street with a milkshake in one hand and a copy of Harpers in the other. I'm reading Harper's, not looking where I'm going, when what should I meet up with but Mr. Lamp-post.
"Hello, Mr. Lamp Post, would you like me to squish into you with my milkshake, causing the milk to squirt up into the air and all over my (black) shirt and magazine? You would? Here we go then!"

As you can see, I don't even need to open my mouth to commit a faux pas. But it helps: once I asked for a beer and said to the guy serving, "Give me lots of head!"
Oh well. At least most of these faux pas are at my own expense.

It's not a faux pas without saying something innappropriate without thinking, embarrasing both parties.

The beer thing is excellent. I have to try that one.

When I was over in the U.K. on an intensive study of Pubs 101, I met some English friends for lunch and they noticed I was limping. "Oh," I said. "I slipped in the shower this morning and fell on my fanny."

I was hurting and so I was a bit miffed when they burst out laughing and asked me how on earth I managed that.

Of course, to Americans, "fanny" is only a rather prim term for "ass." In Britain, it means female genitalia. So, yeah, it would take some work to slip in the shower and fall on that,...,

TimT: Serves you right for reading Harper's. Lewis Lapham has never had a firm grip on reality, and it became very weak indeed when he came down with Bush-phobia and allowed it to infect the rest of the mag.

Promise me you won't do it again until Screwy Lewie gives up the editor's desk to someone who promises to stay on their meds.

It's not a faux pas if you admit to it. A real faux pas has to be pointed out by someone else. C'mon, folks, let's dish...

This didn't happen to me, thank God. I was with a group of Army officers in Manhattan for a seminar. We had gathered in the hotel bar later in the evening, and one of our group walked in with a woman. Major -----, who had already had several drinks, looked up and said, "For God's sake, Harry, couldn't you do any better than that?"

Harry said, "Fellows, I'd like you to meet my wife."

I was going home from a function by taxi, very much the worse for the wear. Driver was a wog, couldn't speak English well. I gave him directions, but this turd couldn't understand my(slurred)Aussie accent, and we got lost. He thought we'd arrived at my place and tried to help me out of the taxi. I thought he was trying to steal my brieface and jobbed him one. Broke his arm. He thought I was trying to evade paying - I look the type. A further blue and I bashed him some more, before storming off.

Seems the kindly old Lebanese was actually trying to help em. Stupid bloody choco.

A friend was expecting his new girlfriend to arrive at the pub, eventually two girls came in, one quite attractive and the other one about the size of a house. He went and greeted them and from across the pub it certainly looked like the attractive one was his girlfriend. He came back over ahead of them and i said "as long as you don't want me to look after her fat, ugly friend!" You can probably guess the rest, the fat ugly one was his girlfriend.

I once accused Grahme Edwards of turning up to parliament legless all the time- did I have a red face. (Worst suburn ever).

i also remember an excruciating dinner with my girlfriend at the time and another female friend. The friend had recently slept with someone we knew and was perhaps starting a relationship with him, she was trying to subtly tell us this without saying it outright. The girlfriend was missing all the cues completely and slagging off about this guy everytime his name came up, her friend was being more and more obvious but she kept missing the point and saying he was a sleaze and a loser, etc, i was kicking her under the table to try and get her to shut up but she wouldn't. Eventually the friend excused herself and left quite upset and I had to explain to the girlfriend what was bothering her. Normally girls are far more intuitive at picking up on this sort of thing, but i had been told by the bloke already.

A few years ago I met my sister-in-law's mother and step-father who were from overseas.

I made a number of incest jokes about Tasmanians, even using terms like 'kissing cousins'.

I was later to find out that the couple were actually first cousins.

Last time I was at Taronga Park Zoo, I remarked about the large Mandril ape parading around, saying "hasn't that baboon got the ugliest arse you've ever seen"? Then I donned my glasses and realised I was actually in Margo Kingston's office at the Sydney Morning Herald. Margo took it as a compliment; hoo-boy was I embarrassed.

Re the Tasmanian incest faux pas, I was drunkenly making much mirth at the expense of the Tasmanian prediliction for related relationships among a group of fellow workers, including one with a visible scar on his upper lip from a cleft palate repair; I later found out he had moved to Brisbane from Hobart. I would have been embarrassed if he hadn't taken me out into the car-park and made me squeal like a pig (alright, I made up the last bit).

Okay, I think my former boss can trump you all...

There was the time myself, two co-workers and our (lovable, but politically incorrect) boss were out to Christmas lunch.

It took a while for our boss to settle down and enjoy himself as he was worked up about a client, who he kept referring to as a "barren old wench", oblivious to the fact that one of his employees had spent the best part of seven years unsuccessfully trying to conceive on the IVF program.

Later, he entertained us with his impersonation of an American cab driver he'd once had who had confessed suffering from Parkinson's disease. Of course, he wasn't to know that the other female employee's mother had just been diagnosed with Parkinsons.

Later, he started railing against Carl Sculley's outrageous decision to ban bull-bars, complaining about how unfair it was, that he'd have to fork out hundreds of dollars for an inferior bullbar, that would not sufficiently protect his car from roos, "just so we can save a couple of pooftas from getting bowled over each year on Oxford Street."

At that point I decided to put on hold my plan to let my co-workers know I was gay.

I met a woman in Genoa, and after I had told her some lies about being an important businessman she invited me back to her place. I thought she lived on her own, but not so. I met her mother at 2am when I went to have a shower. I didn’t have any clothes on, but I had quite the most magnificent erection you could ever wish to see, though I do say so myself.

Keep that under your hat, by the way.

Several years ago, there was a small battery operated 'water resistant' radio on the market that you could stick on the shower wall. Ideal for commuters listening to traffic reports while getting ready for work, I suppose.

Anyway, the thing was called 'Wet Tunes'.

My friend's mother walks into a store looking to buy a "Wet Tunes" radio for a Christmas gift and approaches a young salesman.

"Excuse me", she says, "Do you have 'Wet Dreams'?"

She still says she has no idea why she said it.

Once we saw filthy harlot in public with face uncovered, and did not immediately stone her to death! Embarrass muchly! Instead we drag her off to Sha'ria mullah, who torture her to admit many infidelities with infidel pigs offal, then we belatedly stone her! Embarrass saved, Ho Ho!

One of the less menial jobs I took during college years.. working a food counter at a convention center. A man approached to order some food.

I asked, "Can I have you?"

My two favorites are second-hand, but belong here.

Allison was a high school friend (American like me), a pretty and buxom blonde, and in the '70s she got a job teaching in Australia. One day her students, all 14-15 years old, asked who she hoped would win an upcoming football (soccer) match. Not fully briefed on Aussie slang, she replied "I'll be rooting for Melbourne." (In the U.S., "rooting for" means "cheering for.") She said it took 15 minutes for the class to stop laughing.

In '78 I met a woman, an American citizen originally from Bulgaria. She had moved to New York City in the early '70s and learned English partly from reading popular novels by Jacqueline Susann, etc. One morning she's riding to work on the subway, reading a book, and comes across a word she doesn't know, so she asks her friend sitting on the other side of the subway car: "What does 'fuck' mean?" But subways are noisy, and her friend can't understand her. Louder: "I said, what does 'fuck' mean?!" The friend still can't hear her, and suggests she spell the word. She does, loudly. Then her friend understands and blushes, she realizes what it must mean in context, and everyone else in the subway car is laughing.

I won a prize for asking (as a lawyer, from the bench) the head of the Children's Court, who was putting me through hoops, if:
"Your honour is trying to establish if you might be the mother of the child".

Won a prize for that!

PapayaSF: A common mistake of newly arrived Australians in America is to ask their secretaries, usually female, if they can borrow a rubber. When they get over the shock, someone will usually explain that the word in the States is "eraser."

Once upon a time (OK, six years ago) I jokingly remarked to my then-boyfriend that something-or-other sounded even crazier than those people who believe in alien abductions (you know, medical probings and all that). Turns out his father (a university professor, no less) believes in them, along with Atlantis, astrological signs of the apocalypse, and similar farrago. I doubt I need to mention that that relationship turned out out to be doomed; in fact, the ex seems to have embraced the ways of conspiracy himself, so while it was a faux pas, I can't feel too bad about it.

Simon, your story reminds me of one of my dad's cousins; last July 4th, after having an (unsuccessful) insemination against infertility, she decided to use the family get-together to ask one of my uncles how his new grandson was doing, and then hold forth on how this was the first REAL grandchild, since my other uncle's (adopted) daughter's twins clearly weren't REAL grandchildren. She babbled on about how wonderful it was to have REAL grandchildren in the family until I ended up running into the kitchen crying, because we will very probably end up adopting at some point and I can't say I'm thrilling to the prospect of Cousin Loudmouth asking the future kids, to their faces, "Oh, so you were ADOPTED from RUSSIA, were you?" and asking me if I wish I had REAL children (as opposed to the snazzy polyurethane models we picked up in foreign parts, I guess).

The poms use 'root' and 'spunk' in rather interesting ways from an Aussie perspective, while we're on the related point...

There clearly isn't space here to list all of mine, so herewith a sample (just for background info, I'm a youngish British male):

Once, at primary school (for between 5 and 11s) I told a female German supply teacher that my Dad hated Germans because of the War - she never returned.

During a college class on political correctness, someone asked why the term 'brainstorm' could no longer be used, having been replaced by 'thoughtshower.' I replied that it was so as not to give offence to anyone who had had a spastic attack. It didn't go over too big with the two epileptics in the class.

I once (when unbelievably drunk) told one of my Mom's friends that I thought there were too many asylum seekers in Britain. Turns out he works for the resettlement of refugees in his spare time.

Or how about the time when, absolutely wasted again, I told a female student who I'd been hitting on for about an hour, with a modicum of success, that I'd willingly have sex with Rio Ferdinand, the England footballer?

Or, finally, the time when when walking home from college with one of my best mates, and a bunch of his friends, I asked him how he was getting on trying to pull the sister of a mildly famous English footballer, in a rather loud voice. I'd never seen her before, and was expecting a convivial joke about it. I knew he was having trouble, but didn't think he'd mind telling one of his best mates. He looked at me with a real flash in his eye, which I completely missed, before asking him again, in an even louder voice. Turns out she was the woman walking next to him.

There's many, many more, more than I can possibly relate here, but let me say this - many faux pas' can simply be avoided by lessening alcohol consumption. However, where's the fun in that?

I was playing in a band, after the first couple of songs, there was a beeping noise. So the guitarist says, on mic, "hey, someone's beeper is going off". Same thing after the next two songs, at which point, he goes, "can someone sort out that f***ing beeper!" It wasn't a beeper, it was coming from a severaly handicapped member of the audience - it's what they do to signify applause. And to make it worse, the disabled guy's carer was the gig promoter. Our guitarist couldn't have been more apologetic, particularly because his day job is as - a carer for the Disability Services Commission.

Looking back over my post, there's two things I ought to make absolutely clear:

1) To the best of my knowledge, my dad has never hated Germans because of the War, and I can't work out now where I got that idea from.

And, 2) I really don't want to have sex with Rio Ferdinand. Honest. When I work out want part of my brain thought that was a Good Thing To Say, I'll amputate it. At home, with a rusty penknife, if necessary.

Some years ago, when my nether regions were severely backed up, I went out to the local supermarket to pick up an enema. It was late at night, I recall. When I brought the package to the checkout girl, for some reason it wouldn't scan; so she pulls down the mike for the PA and bellows, "GROCERY! PRICE ON FLEET ENEMA!" while holding the package up and waving it, just in case anyone in the line behind me happened to miss the transaction. I'm thinking, "I'm not here. This is not happening. This is not real."

After what seemed like three hours, some smirking, pimply stockboy sauntered by and gave her the price. As she's ringing it up, the girl remarks, "I've never seen one of these before. What is it?" I burned to tell her the literal truth: You take this and shove it up your ass! But no, I just muttered that it was medicine, and slunk out of the store.

this was to be the greatest and fastest of all forehand drives, no one but no one would be able to return it. Would you believe no one did return it they were too busy laughing. The second I hit this ball I involuntarily passed wind very very loudly. I even think those on the ajoining tennis courts heard it. Regards, numbat

Final, unrelated point (isn't it annoying when people make these) before I head to the comfort of bed; namely, have you noticed how easily the lyrics of 'Don't Blame It On The Boogie' by The Jackson Five fit the tune of the Dambusters March?

I really, really, need sleep, methinks.

tim blair,
you say: "faux pas"
steve martin say: "HE SPOKE FRENCH!!!"

p.s. et tu froggie?

Masturbating to nude pictures of Germaine Greer in the middle of a Feminist Studies class at uni

Wished a co-worker a "Merry Christmas" yesterday.

I work for the Sydney City Council.

My Grandad has always often told me of the time he killed his first German, shortly after he flew into France...

...unfortunately this was is 1976, and so, well..thigs got fairly complicated for him after that.

My Grandad has always often told me of the time he killed his first German, shortly after he flew into France...

...unfortunately this was is 1976, and so, well..thigs got fairly complicated for him after that.

My Grandad has always often told me of the time he killed his first German, shortly after he flew into France...

...unfortunately this was is 1976, and so, well..thigs got fairly complicated for him after that.

Basil, it was only funny once.

40 years ago, just after I graduated, I went to work on the west coast of Tasmania. I used to get away to Hobart as often as I could, as I had a GF there.

Before long, I was invited to dinner with her parents. Her father was a methodist minister.

Remember this is Tasmania in the mid sixties and I was living in a rather uncouth mining community on the WC.

After the meal, her mother asked me how I enjoyed the food.

"Mmmm", I replied, "it was fuckin' fantastic".

I don't remember anything after that.

40 years ago, just after I graduated, I went to work on the west coast of Tasmania. I used to get away to Hobart as often as I could, as I had a GF there.

Before long, I was invited to dinner with her parents. Her father was a methodist minister.

Remember this is Tasmania in the mid sixties and I was living in a rather uncouth mining community on the WC.

After the meal, her mother asked me how I enjoyed the food.

"Mmmm", I replied, "it was fuckin' fantastic".

I don't remember anything after that.

Rhett brought me a bonnet from Paris and I put it on backwards.
The war had been going on so long, I didn't know how to wear the latest fashions!

After several weeks of salesmanship I had finally managed to get this woman, let's call her Sharon since that was her name, into bed. I even called her the next day like you're supposed to and looked forward to having at her again sometime soon.

Several days later I was driving home from my bartending job after spending several hours sitting at the bar myself, drinking with my co-workers after closing time. Realizing that I had no business behind the wheel of a car in my condition, I decided to stop over at Sharon's to see what she was up to. At 3:00 a.m. And I had to drive past my house to get to her's. It all made perfect sense at the time.

Anyway, I pulled up in front of her darkened house and walked up the driveway and into the backyard so I could romantically tap on her bedroom window. As soon as I did so, I saw her sit up in bed, obviously terrified by the shape of a man in her backyard, tapping on the window. "Who is it?," she gasps. "It's Dan." "Who?" "Dan." "SHARON! DAN'S IN THE BACKYARD!" That's when I remembered that she lived with her mother, a nice woman I'd met only once, and realized I was at the wrong window.

Instead of trying to concoct some reasonable, easy to understand explanation for what I was doing there at that hour I decided that vaulting the six-foot block wall and gettin' the hell outta Dodge was the better part of valor. I quickly made it back to my car, drove down the street with my lights off, went home and never saw or even spoke to her again. I like to think that she looked in the backyard, saw nothing, and decided mom must have been dreaming. But I never did have the nerve to find out. Just one of my many proud moments.

Apologies for the double post.

What a faux pas!

I remember telling von Rundstedt, "Those frogs gave it up like cheap whores. I bet we could do even better with the Bolshies; we could probably take them in less than six weeks. They're like a condemned house. One swift kick and the whole rotten structure will cave in."

Hoo, boy!

I still think it would have worked, too, if that pesky Jones fellow from Indiana hadn't foiled my earlier plans.

I was at our office Christmas party. I saw a woman I had not seen for a while. I congratulated her on her pregnency. She informed that she wasn't expecting. She was just very fat.
I wanted to die right there. Doing something stupid like that to another person was probably the worst feeling I had ever experienced. It ruined my Xmas party and I am sure it wrecked hers as well.

This lady asked me if I were a good witch or a bad witch. I told her I wasn't a witch at all- that witches were old and ugly. About a hundred midgets started laughing at me.
You guessed it- she was a witch.
I was so embarrassed.

You think you all made faux pas? Try explaining evolution to a creator with no sense of humour.........hey- easy with the hot pokers, boys, I'm on the 'net............you're going to stick them where???....EEEEYOWWW!!!!

When I was about 10 I played on a kids’ basketball team coached by a handicapped guy - he’d had polio as a child and walked with crutches and leg braces.

Just before a game one day, the team - 10 players and the coach - was sitting on the bench, and the referee strode up, looked at a player named Clark, whose leg was in a cast as he’d just broken it, and said, “How’s it goin’ cripple?” The coach, without skipping a beat, said, “Great, how ’bout yourself?”

When I was living in France, a stout, middle-aged Scotswoman recounted to me the time she'd gone into a bed store and told the salesman, in French, "I need a mattress for my bed."

Unfortunately it turns out the French word for "mattress" and the French word for "sailor" are almost identical. Guess which one she used?

This beauty isn't one of mine, but I witnessed it.

About 15 yeras ago I visited London with my then GF, who was a fairly strident feminist. We caught up with an old friend of mine, a doctor that was then working in a hospital in Dorset. We arranged to go out to dinner with him and his stunning black GF (one of the most beautiful girls I have ever met, not that it matters to this story).

Walking along the street to the restaurant, the following conversation ensued:

MY GF: So how did you meet Andrew?

HIS GF: At the hospital.

MY GF: Oh, so you're a nurse?

HIS GF: No, I'm a doctor.

My GF told me later that she "just wanted the earth to open up and swallow me".

Of course, Andrew & I thought it was priceless.

If it's faux pas you want, I got a sea bag full of them. Try this on for size:

I was at my soon-to-be in-laws for dinner one night gabbing with my some of my soon-to-be sisters-in-law and generally slaying them with my charm. My fiance noted this and gave me a good-natured barb designed to take me down a notch. I feigned exasperation with my fiance, pulled an imaginary pistol out of my shoulder holster and put an end to her torment by shooting myself in the head with my hand--to polite smiles. Sure enough, their brother had committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the head in that very house.

My relationship with the in-laws never recovered.

When I had a civilian job on the U.S. Army base in Seoul, I went to my bosses office to talk to him one day. In his office was the skankiest, nastiest looking Itaewon bar-girl. When I went into his office, she told him "I wait in car for you".

I wanted to say so many things but I cranked it down to "John, what the f**k you doing bringing bar-girls on base?"

He responded "um, she's my wife".

I thought, "oh great, I just told my boss his wife looked like an Itaewon bar-girl". Career? Over. Prospects? Screwed. Future? None.

(A couple of months later he told me the whole story. When he met her, she actually was an Itaewon bar-girl. He married her two months after meeting her. However, once a bar-girl, always a bar-girl. Whenever he went TDY, she would go work as a bar-girl at a bar owned by a friend of hers. They eventually negotiated a deal where she moved to Hawaii. She found work there at a Korean bar-girl bar in Hono. She would come back to Korea 3 or 4 times a year, and he would take up with her for a couple of weeks. After hearing his story, I thought to myself, "if I ever end in such a screwed-up situation, just shoot me, please".)

A guy I met at a training seminar here in Japan, let's call him Jason, later over a few beers, asked me what I thought about the manager at the branch school where I was stationed.

"Naomi?! Dude, she's a f*cking maniac!"

I told him about how, after a particularly raucous Christmas Party, at which she'd busily tongue-kissed every woman present, she attached herself to me and informed me that she had to spend the night at my place because she'd missed the last train. Didn't take a lot of convincing, I might add.

"She had her tongue in my ass before I could even get my underwear off!" He was smiling and nodding, but I had kind of the impression that he was gritting his teeth.

A month or so later, I got the company newsletter. Guess who Naomi was engaged to.

Lovely couple, though.

In my beginning Spanish class, I used the word "facil" to describe myself thinking it meant "easy-going." At least half of the class who were native speakers learning grammar cracked up laughing.

So I'm easy.

In my beginning Spanish class, I used the word "facil" to describe myself thinking it meant "easy-going." At least half of the class who were native speakers learning grammar cracked up laughing.

So I'm easy.

Once I left more than footprints and took more than memories. [I'm very ashamed.]

My teen was visiting Paris and was asked by her friends and associates there how she was spending her time. She told them that she really enjoyed the Louvre and was spending each free moment there, that it was so stimulating and edifying, and that she was learning a lot. She got strange reactions from the locals who offered to take her sightseeing, instead, but she insisted that visiting the Louvre each day was well-worth her time in Paris.

Turned out my girl's beginning French was deplorable and all everyone heard her say all week was that she enjoyed going to the "loo" a lot

I died, and met God, and he/she/it was pretty annoyed that me and my crew made he/she/it look like such an asshole. Luckily, he/she/it really is all-loving, so there's no Hell for me to burn in. Whew.

Kinda disappointed the faggots aren't roasting, though...

Hmmmm.

I was renting a beach house with 3 other guys one time when the issue of Thanksgiving came up. I had wanted to cook a big turkey and have a traditional dinner because my family all lived a long distance away and I couldn't travel. So my fellow housemates all brought some of their friends over for the dinner, which went pretty well.

Up until one guest, a police officer, arrested another guest, a man wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant.

Well he did wait until after dessert and coffee so I really can't fault the guy for that. :/

At my firm's Christmas party, I decided to drop the constant "it's all business" office demeanor by charmingly introducing myself to one of our newest associates. I hardly knew her, but I figured I'd show off how informed I was by using what little knowledge I had -- I knew she had a boyfriend, and I even knew what his name was. I noticed that he wasn't there.

No, the alarm bells didn't go off in my head.

So, in a crowd of far too many people, I loudly greeted her and cleverly asked her where her boyfriend was (by name!). After a pause (during which my business partner, who knew more than I did, reflexively turned away), with a voice quivering ever so slightly and eyes beginning to brim with tears, she said, "we're not together ... we broke up ... this afternoon."

I have 3 that come to mind.

1. Xmas drinks about a decade ago, two very large women come into the place, never able to resist a comment, I confided (too loudly) to my colleagues "Holy shit, look at WTF just walked in". One of them made a beeline for me to say "Llew, you remember me, I'm Jim's wife" (the colleague sitting next to me).

2. On the way back from my girlfriend's sister's wedding in another city, GF & I stopped to do a spot of horsetrekking. The owner of the horse trek asked what we'd been up to that weekend, I explained in overly derisive tone that we'd attended a jehovah's Witness wedding & managed a condescending finish by telling him it was nowhere near as weird as I'd hoped or expected. turns out his daughter was the bridesmaid.

3. At a local bar, at a table with one of the barstaff, and a regular, a small, odd fellow, generally disliked. 3 very attractive & really glammed up women approached & chatted with this fellow. They clearly knew him quite well. I asked the barmaid at the table how come this guy knew these three hotties? She replied he probably paid for them. Funny how alcohol impairs good sense & judgement, when the opportunity came to speak to the hottest of the 3 women, I very wittily asked "So which escort agency do you work for?" Big mistake, I had to leave the establishment because of the fuss they (justifiably) caused.

Last night - probably ... (how my head hurts!). Will have to go and talk to the cow-orkers and find out the bad news, who I dissed, how loud and boring was I ... ooooooh ....