Product Description

Britain has a history common to many islands: it is one of repeated invasion, occupation and assimilation. Each phase of this history has left its mark on our culture, architecture, language and place names. A rich mix of Celtic, Norse, Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, French and Latin have made the English language a gift to poets and writers. However, the nuances and double meanings so favoured by creative writers have also led to a number of very rude place names.

Rude Britain is a compilation of 100 of the best and rudest place names, each one photographed and explained by authors Rob Bailey and Ed Hurst. From streets such as Fanny Avenue, Willey Lane, Titty Ho and Asshouse Lane to a village called Cocks; Great Britain throws up a wealth of odd names that have somehow been overlooked by the nation. Until now.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #212549 in Books
• Published on: 2005-09-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 128 pages

About the Author

Rob Bailey spent his formative years in the village of Cumnor, Oxfordshire, where the family home rested peacefully upon the hill known as Tumbledown Dick. He lives in Surbiton with a small family of guitars. Ed Hurst, in common with Isaac Newton, was born in the Lincolnshire town of Grantham. His blend of pompous, puerile verbosity has helped him to establish himself as a company director and management consultant. Rob and Ed are both well respected scatological-geographical-etymologists, with a specialism in UK names.

Customer Reviews

Brings out the sniggering schoolboy (or girl) in us all
Rude Britain is a funny and informative tour of the rude and crude place names that are dotted around Britain. If you're the sort of person who wouldn't be able to drive through Muff without having a chuckle, or see Twat on a map without guffawing, then this is for you. The book also provides a bit of background on the origins of these odd place names. All in all, a very amusing little book.

Is this the way to Sandy Balls?
Boxtree has been providing me with amusing little books for a while now. First came Crap Towns, then Crap Jobs, then Crap Towns II...and now, as an antidote, some places in Btitain where anyone would surely love to live. After all, who wouldn't give their back teeth to have Wetwang or Twatt as a postal address? Who wouldn't be delighted to reside in Fanny Hands Lane or Upperthong? The authors have clearly been travelling far and wide from the look of the map at the back, checking out everything from tiny villages to country lanes, from housing estates to geological features. It's all very British and, in its own way, as innocent as a Carry On film from the mid-sixties. Have they missed out any of your favourites? If so, you sense they'd love to know - I smell a sequel in the air! How different Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca would have been if it begun: 'Last night I dreamed I went to Shitterton again...'

Childish - Though there is nothing wrong with that!
Alright, I admit that when I bought this book it was purely for childish titilation and that is what you get, in pary. There is no denying that there are some funny place names in the UK (Scratchy Bottom is definatly a favourite) and the authors could simply have listed some of those, along with pictures of signposts of course.

Instead, they did that, but they also added a good deal of interesting information about how somewhere may have ended up with such a name. It turns this book away from being mere lavatory humour into something far more interesting.

Worth a read, even if you will be done in 15 minutes!