General Chat

When filling in forms for the Government, the Council or NHS, we are usually asked to state our Ethnic Origin.

When dealing with one of these organisations this week, the Form showed:-

Ethnic Origin
English __
British __
Irish __
Other __

So in effect if you are English you are not British!!!!

I am not English.

In my experience, on these forms, it usually says:
Scottish,
Irish
Welsh
British
Other

Couldn't believe it when a 'confidential' survey (with ref number on accompanying letter and questionnaire form) from the council about satisfaction with contractors asked if I was gay/lesbian, my religion, first language and the colour of my skin.

I never filled it in. :-P

Contractors like to know these details, Maggie. Sometimes, Rasta, Manx and blush peach would have been my answers :-) ;-)

I was sorely tempted to cut off the reference number, put sexual orientation as necrophiliac, and ethnic origin as zombie.

Hi Mag, just looked up Necrophiliac, your kidding me, :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D


F.

Hi Frederick - if I was a zombie?......

I didn't send it back, but I fail to see the relevance of such questions.

Maggie I have cut of the ref. no and never fill in (to me anyway) personal questions. Will tell them to go and jump next time.

And why no box for Balham, Gateway to the South? :-D

Mayfield :-D :-D :-D .......and why not?

That expression about Balham takes me back - what programme was it in?

We also used to say "north of Potters Bar" and north of "Watford Gap" to describe the more uncivilised areas of Britain of cobbles and perma frost.

Peter Sellars John. I remember it from a comedy LP I used to listen to at work lol.

Thanks, Rose :-D :-D Poor Balham and Neasden (Private Eye) used to have their images dented 50 years ago. No doubt they are both getting tourists now to savour their delights. ;-)

I also remember Balham - Gateway to the South by Peter Sellers.

It was a take-off of tourist advertising at the time and ended (I think) with a waitress in a caff saying, "Beans is off, dear".

I always do the following on such forms: Put a line across the page. On the bottom write:

"I refuse to answer this. We are all citizens of this country and questions such as this perpetuate the differences in our society."

I'm English.

You have my sympathy, IGP :-)

"Are you white?" gets me. I am a sort of parchment yellow in winter and a healthy light red in summer months. Most of us are somewhere between snow white and jet black, and we change according to health and weather.

I don't have a problem with those questions.

I'm not English ;-) and I'm not white ( pale worm colour) but I DO want my council to be able to judge whether the local population needs specific services because of their origins ( eg if council's need to offer paperwork in Swahili or forms which give and option for couples who are other than 'Mr and Mrs' ).

I would also want my council to know whether contractors they employ are providing a service free from any bias due to antipathy towards, say, people of a different colour/sexual orientation.

:-D

yeah, yeah, yeah, Rose.

But is it really a problem today. There are laws in place. And if someone can only speak Swahili, can they not get a friend who can read or speak English to help them for free.

The census is used for statistics and planning. Can't we knock all this other data collection on head? Please :-)

One problem solved.... Learn English

I feel sure if I moved to Greece, I would not have forms to fill in in English. Everything would be in Greek and it would be all Greek to me. So I would make friends with Nana Mouskuri or similar and ask her how to do things.

If you have been brought up Welsh speaking and live in Wales, you certainly don't get the same amount of care and attention as a Swahili speaker in Britain seems to get. And some of them seem to only be able to speak Swahili after more than 30 years in Britain.

There are quite a lot of immigrants in Cardiff who not only speak English very well - they are also pretty good at Welsh too. So I am not having a go at every native speaker of Swahili or Gujerati