BEVS

You'll be fine for a trip here Ozzieeagle. It will be smiles & charm for your hols. It was for our two trips out here way before we emigrated.

Dreamy

I was called a Geordie Pom the other day in the Post Office.

I was extremely irate and pointed out that I was a Mackem Pom, thank you very much, and that was fighting talk where I came from.

That was an interesting passport application interview

Gordon Barlow

Yes, well, members of The Men's Shed are exempted from all the usual rules of behaviour!

Still Game

this this this this this! Or, wow after nearly 16 years you've still got your accent! Do people think I'll start suddenly speaking like my username?

OzTennis

The Geordies and the Mackems look like changing places (EPL to Championship and vice-versa); at the moment Mackem Pom has a bit more credence though.

DeadVim

I've called myself a "Pommy <whatever>" in jest way more times than I've heard it.

Actually, thinking about it, I can't remember the last time someone said it. As opposed to accidentally reading it in some gutter media outlet whilst in a typically fruitless search for what could be loosely labelled a "news story".

It could be due to the indisputible fact that my unavoidable Pomminess is comprehensively outshone by my all-round awesomeness as a representative of the Human Race.

Dorothy

Hey, Vim. How's things?

Dreamy

Yes, I know.

You didn't need to remind me that we're both crap at footy

DeadVim

Spangly thanks! I've been a bit of a quiet of late in many ways but can't complain.

Without wishing to hijack the thread and piss the Poms off, how about yourself?

BadgeIsBack

I think it is disappearing to some extent. The last time it was directed at me : a long time: if anything, I refer to myself as a Pom (from a 'safe' and secure self-deprecating position, I would add) more than anyone else.

If someone gets picked on about it then they probably stand out a bit. I suspect the times it is used genuinely negatively to anyone's face would be rare and maybe with good reason.

I find perhaps in more blue collar environments it might be used but in professional life not one jot.

Kim67

I use pom all the time - but never in a nasty way. Pom is just an easy way to refer to English sport teams ect.

moneypenny20

I think I've been called a Pom a couple of times in 11 years, not sure. It's been said in terms of 'oh are you a Pom?' on meeting me. I've always said no and that's been the end of it. As DV said, the only times I 'hear' it is in rubbish media reports.

Buzzy--Bee

I'm with Bevs. When I lived in NZ, I was on the butt end of pommy jibes daily. I was expecting the same in Melbourne and have never ever had them.

When I go back to NZ on holidays I get them daily again.

New Zealanders are insecure and inward-looking. They feel threatened by anything different and attack it.

The exceptions are the New Zealanders who have actually done something with their lives and left the place.

GarryP

There is a thing about insularity - people who've never left the town they grew up in tend to look more unkindly on those coming in from outside. If you have moved, you are less possessive about a place.

moneypenny20

Too true. I'm on a FB page for my old home town, one of those remember the old days type thing but loads of new stuff as well. There are one or two (not all of them by any means) people who have never moved away who get very irate when those of us who have moved dare to have an opinion about changes. Apparently because we left the place we have no right to an opinion, let alone be allowed to voice it.