The small village with a rude name has had enough of sniggering tourists.
For many years now, a small village in Austria has gained international attention – unwanted attention, it must be said – for its unfortunate name. Fucking, population 100, gained its name after it was founded by Bavarian nobleman Focko in the 6th century. Things being what the are, the spelling moved from Vucchingen in 1070, Fukching in the fourteenth century and Fugkhing in the sixteenth century, before its current spelling in the 18th century. Local residents – known as Fuckingers – have had to put up with amused tourists since the second world war, when the four road signs became the place to be photographed next to. The village has become especially popular with British tourists – well, of course it has. A few local entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the situation by producing Fucking postcards and a Fucking beer, but these enterprising fuckers have been criticised and even threatened by fellow locals who are keen to discourage Fucking tourists.
Worse still, the Fucking road signs have had a habit of disappearing, stolen by amused tourists for whom a photograph is not enough. And some people have taken to having sex under the signs – well, you would I suppose. CCTV cameras were installed to put these exhibitionists off, but there is only so much you can do, especially when many of these couples (or however many participants there were) were filming themselves for professional or amateur porn shoots.
Rumours of name changes have abounded for years, but it has finally happened. During their 17th of November 2020 session, the council of Tarsdorf voted to change the name to Fugging – retaining the pronunciation but no longer having the amusing word of any signage. The change will take place on January 1st 2021- no word on whether the remaining street signs will be sold off to sniggering Brits, but I suspect not.
Luckily, Austria still offers Oberfucking and Unterfucking for rude word tourists.
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They could twin with Finland’s Hell, no sense of humour I suppose.
Apparently, the Fucking beer was a hells.
Bell End isn’t far from where I live in the Black Country