JIM Bowen this week resigned from his Radio Lancashire show The Happy Daft Farm after calling a black person a 'nig-nog'.

The whole furore surrounds the double meaning of the word -- in bygone days a generic term for an idiot but more lately a vile racial slur.

So far, his harshest critic is the man himself.

He said he meant his comment entirely innocently but accepted that such slips of the tongue have no place in modern society.

He said: "No racial connotation was ever intended and, having said all that, I should have been sharp enough to correct the error.

"I almost immediately apologised for it as it was, to say the least, not clever.

"Sadly, when a 65-year-old is employed he brings with him a certain amount of baggage from his era and sadly sometimes this doesn't sit well in 2002.

"The expression I used would identify with the youngsters who were last to be picked in a football team or perhaps weren't the sharpest knife in the box."

"I was 65 in August and perhaps this was nature's way of telling me that I was not up to speed with modern connotations to survive in the current broadcasting climate."

Certainly the modern BBC is at great pains to be politically correct. Bosses called the language 'racially offensive' and 'unacceptable'.