The other day my larynx thought it would be fun to become friends with some bacteria, thus disabling it from performing its usual job of allowing me to emit desirable sounds from out of my mouth.  It was gracious enough not to dissolve away completely, but it left me very little to work with, unless of course I was hoping to make a career out of impersonating a pubescent male whose voice was breaking.

I had an important Brothers Streep show which I was going to need my voice to sing in, so I consulted music guru and friend Matt Alison via e-mail, and he suggested getting liquorice throat lozenges from the chemist called Nigroids.  I was incredibly grateful for this suggestion, because the only other suggestion I had was from both Dylan and my mom, and it involved raw eggs, and at least in Dylan’s case, I fear this was only suggested because he wanted to see me vomit whilst attempting to down a raw egg.  (Dylan did actually end up creating a concoction of milk, syrup and raw egg for me to try, and in his defence it wasn’t too bad.  At the very least it’s definitely  better than a Bovril drink.)

The problem with Matt’s suggestion is that I didn’t quite like the idea of going up to the counter at the chemist and having to ask for Nigroids, because whether intended or not, the name does seem to be suspiciously similar to a word which is considered racist, and isn’t exactly going to sound any less racist when said by a white South African like myself.

And then it dawned on me that maybe there was a completely normal and non-racist way to pronounce the word.  Maybe it had a silent ‘n’ or something which I was unaware of.

I did what any respectable champion of The Rainbow Nation would do, and I wrote the name on a piece of paper, and decided that showing the chemist the piece of paper was far safer than showing the chemist a potentially racist way to pronounce a word.

Whilst walking towards the chemist I actually considered pretending to be completely unable to speak, but I dismissed that idea rather quickly, because I feared it could cause further complications.  If I pretended to not be able to speak, and just walked up the counter holding a sign saying ‘Nigroids’, that could be deemed fairly acceptable.  But, if Matt Alison had accidently spelt the name incorrectly in his e-mail, and Nigroids weren’t actually an existing product, then simply walking up to a counter and holding up a sign saying ‘Nigroids’ could make the whole act take on an entirely different meaning.  Especially if the person behind the counter wasn’t white.

I ended up approaching the counter, explaining my condition with the very little voice I had left, and then when it came to pronouncing the name, I simply held up the sign.  To my relief the chemist had heard of the product.  She even said it out loud, and yes, in case you were wondering, Nigroids is pronounced in exactly the way you’d think it would be pronounced.

And this really makes me wonder, in a world where many people say political correctness has gone mad, how on earth has this product slipped through the cracks?  I completely understand that there is the possibility that the word might describe its chemical make-up or medicinal properties in some way that I am unaware of, but even if that is the case, then surely you do your best to make sure that the lozenges are any colour other than black?

Those round colour changing liquorice sweets changed their name when people correctly realised that calling them n***** balls wasn’t in good taste, so how these small liquorice throat lozenges haven’t kept with the times is a mystery.

Incidentally, thanks to a suggestion by my friend Jono Moore, I have happily been calling n***** balls by the name ‘multi-racial spheres’ for a while now, so, Nigroids, a name change is possible, and I wait eagerly for a response...