error for expr in bash when trying to scp

[Rudra Banerjee]

In both my local and remote machine, I have:

cal
date
p=`echo $COLUMNS`
p2=`expr $p / 2`
p4=`expr $p2 - 15`
p3=`expr $p4 + 8`
echo -e "\E[2;36m\033[${p4}G********************************\033[0m"
echo -e "\E[1;31m\033[${p3}GLETS DO SOME WORK\033[0m"
echo -e "\E[2;36m\033[${p4}G********************************\033[0m"

Now, when I am trying to scp in the remote machine, it gives error:

rudra@local]$ scp pure.dat remote:
September 2015
expr: syntax error
expr: syntax error


How can I get rid of this error? putting cal, date and the banner in PS1 is not a solution, as I want them only when the terminal is launched, not in every prompt.

I am using gnome-terminal.

$bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.3.42(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

$rpm -qa|grep gnome-terminal
gnome-terminal-3.16.2-1.fc22.x86_64

$echo $TERM
xterm-256color

Any help please?