F*cking villagers vote against name change

F*cking villagers vote against name change

Residents of an Austrian village called F*cking, have voted against changing the name.

The 150 or so people who live in the village debated the issue after roadsigns kept being stolen - many by British tourists.
Spokesman Siegfried Hoeppl, said: "Everyone here knows what it means in English, but for us F*cking is F*cking - and it's going to stay F*cking - even though the signs keep getting stolen."
He said the name came from Mr F*ck and his family who settled in the area 100 years ago, and added "ing", meaning village or settlement.
The villagers didn't find out about the English meaning of the word until Allied soldiers stationed in the region in 1945 pointed out the alternative meaning.
Local newspaper editor Menhardt Buzasa said there had been an increase in the number of signs being stolen, and said British tourists were usually blamed.
"I do not agree it is just the British. F*cking is universal. Germans use it as much now as the British, and it also means the same to the Americans, Australians and anyone in the English speaking world," he said.
Similar votes on a name change have taken place recently in neighbouring Austrian towns Wank am see and Petting, as well as in Vomitville and Windpassing.

Tuesday, June 08, 2004

French president gives lift to lost veteran

A D-Day veteran who got lost on his way back from Sunday's commemorations got a lift back to Paris - from French President Jacques Chirac.
New Zealander Keith Coleman got on the wrong bus after the ceremonies in Normandy and ended up at an airfield where other veterans boarded flights.
Inside the terminal, 86-year-old Mr Coleman said he found a man wearing gold braid.
"I guess he must have felt sorry for me, because he made a few phone calls and told me he thought he could get me back to Paris,"BBC News Online quotes him telling The Guardian.
Mr Coleman was taken to another airfield, where Mr Chirac arrived shortly afterwards.
He said: "He came over... I snapped to attention and gave him a little salute... he put his arm around me. He said he would be happy for me to travel in one of the aeroplanes and gave instructions that I was to be driven to the door of my hotel."