Farewell to Fucking! (October 2010)

Back in October 2010 my wife was 7 months pregnant with our 2nd child. Sensing that the clock was ticking, I booked a flight to Munich for a 36-hour photography road trip. The reason? To finally visit Fucking in Austria - surely the quintessential rudest place name, although Twatt is close to my heart.

Day One took in the sights (signs) of Petting, Pulling, Kissing, Rottenegg, Wang & the gloriously named Pfaffing with a night in Salzburg. Day Two was the big one and the weather was perfect - a crisp but sunny autumn day.

The first thing that struck me was that for a village whose people weren't so enamoured with their name, they weren't shy with the signage. Every road into it had a Fucking sign, with the reverse bearing the name with a bold red line scored diagonally through the word to signify you were leaving.

The second thing that struck me was the Fuckingers' hostility towards me, an English person with a camera. Most people just harangued me from a distance but a particularly agitated coach driver even pulled up to deliver a volley of angry German invective through his window. Despite not possessing any knowledge of the language I presumed he wasn't commending me on my line of work.

The Fuckingers lost a 2006 name-change vote which prompted the Mayor to state "...for us Fucking is Fucking—and it's going to stay Fucking." The local police chief chipped in with "It may be very amusing for you British......What is this big Fucking joke? It is puerile."

But that resolve to preserve 800 years of history has been worn down and as of 1st January 2021 Fucking will be airbrushed out of existence to join Butt Hole Road (Conisbrough, Doncaster) and Back Passage (Clerkenwell, London) on the roll call of great lost names.

You'll no doubt be wondering what the replacement is. Well, I can confirm that they've settled on Fugging. The campaign to twin it with Effin in Limerick starts here!

I could have helped the Fuckingers out with a nice line of gifts - here’s the mug:

https://lesserspotted.myshopify.com/collections/mugs/products/fucking-bone-china-mug

but sadly they were never able to embrace their rude name in the same way that the residents of Muff in Donegal have - that's for another Blog post. But at least their rudely named village lives on at lesserspotted.com!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/26/fugging-hell-tired-of-mockery-austrian-village-changes-name