Considering that the show I was on (BBC Five Live's Up all Night) was being played at 3.35am in the UK I think I am safe from instant fame in my homeland. It is also unlikely that the Kazakh secret service were tuning into Five Live (unless they had been listening to victorious England in the last Ashes Test Match, fallen asleep and woken four hours later to hear some over-excited expat housewife describing their country as "like the wild west on cocaine"), so I am probably safe from expulsion on the grounds of criticizing the regime, which, for the avoidance of doubt, I was not!
So how did the Beluga get invited to speak? Persuaded by my friend Emily Expat (not her real name!) whose friend works for the beeb and had asked her to do it. Emily Expat was too aware of her own propensity to say outrageous things and so she had passed it on - or perhaps she had been worried that the show might air after a Sunday night session in Line Brew pub and she might have really shocked everyone then.
