Town cashes in on F***ing Christmas

Residents of the Austrian town of F***ing have given up trying to live down their name and are cashing in with a range of Christmas cards.

Locals have given up on trying to discourage visitors from making fun of the name and have instead decided to turn it into an asset.

As well as the sell-out 'F***ing Chrstmas cards', local businesses are also doing a roaring trade with 'F***ing beer' and a range of 'F***ing' souvenirs.

The village's name is understood to come from a sixth century noble called Lord Focko, with 'ing' being old-fashioned German for 'family of'.

Local mayor Franz Meindl had previously complained about tourists flocking to the village to be photographed in front of the 'F***ing' road signs.

He said: "They have been a nuisance for years, some even strip off naked, and the worst steal the 'F***ing' signs. They think its funny but a new 'F***ing' sign is expensive.

"Until the Americans were stationed nearby after the war we didn't even know it had an alternative meaning. It is just the usual spelling of the word for us. I'm sure I could find many town names in Britain or somewhere else which sound funny when pronounced in German.

"There is nothing funny in the name to us. If other people laugh about it, there is nothing we can do. But we pronounce it differently in our dialect and it was never funny in any way."

In the end the village concreted the poles in place and welded the signs in tight to stop them being pinched.
The villagers even had a debate about whether to change the name but decided in the end to keep their name after learning that the nearby German village of W**k had developed a flourishing tourism business.