(Thanks for the support Paul - I had a somewhat sleepless night worrying about this after Guest's post.)

I realised that in the UK we knock and self-depreciate ourselves, utilising irony and parody (and this largely permeates through all stratas of our multi-cultural society) and as this is a particularly British joke - it might not be understood by other members of the Global Mudcat community. But Crumbs! I wonder if Guest would understand what "Goodness Gracious Me!" was all about?

Britain's only stand-up Muslim comedienne Shazia Mirza cancelled gigs for a week after WTC - then climbed back on stage to announce "My name is Shazia Mirza - at least that's what it says on my pilot's licence" and receiving standing applause. Does that make her a religious bigot? Or a seller-out of her religion? Or an transcending observer of comic potential in a tragedy?

She says: "You have to attack ignorance with humour. We're not all fanatics. I tell audiences how they can distinguish me from Muslim terrorists: they have bigger moustaches than I do." Equally, she finds Osama "Bin Liner" absurd, but the attempts to catch him farcical, "His son commented that when he gets angry he becomes invisible.. and now this one man has the whole of West running around trying to get him out of a cave. It's quite funny when you think about it."

That's a Muslim woman's point of view. Rhetorically speaking, could we take issue with that - without (in Guest's view) being racial or religious bigots?