The Times (via) reports that a group of British expats in Australia have launched a legal action to outlaw the use of the word in advertising on the basis that Pom is a derogatory term, on a par with “nigger” and “wog”.

British People Against Racial Discrimination (BPARD) has launched the action with Australia’s Advertising Standards Bureau in an attempt to take off air a television beer advertisement that features an Englishman fearful of Australia’s cold. Cold beer, that is.

The advert claims that Tooheys’ Supercold s “cold enough to scare a Pom” and features footage of an overweight, pale, balding man in a Union Jack T-shirt cringing in fear at the offer of a cold beer.

BPARD spokesman, David Thomason believes that there is a fashionable wave of derogatory insults against the British and, on the eve of the second Ashes Test, cited the behaviour of Australian cricket fans toward the English: “The songs the Aussie supporters sing talk about how we can’t get near your body because of your smell, your body odour, your bad breath, your buck teeth, your whingeing, have you got some soap,” he said.

It’s unlikely that BPARD will achieve anything other than making themselves the butt of even more whingeing pom jokes. The Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has considered twice whether the word is derogatory and ruled it safe on both occasions.

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