Fucking,
Austria is a (
real!)
town in
Northern Austria, located at 48' 03"N 13' 51"E. Founded in the sixth
century by a
man named Focko, the town has been
relatively unknown aside from
American (and possibly other
English-speaking)
tourists
stealing their
town sign. While the
name is actually
pronounced 'Fooking', this does little to deter such
thievery.
In order to curb the sign-stealings, which take up much of the town's
meager budget, the
Mayor of
Fucking has stated in the past that he
intends to do so through use of more
concrete and bigger
screws...
In
regards to the
sign itself, it's reasonably
average in
construction. However, a
disturbing juxtaposition happens to
adorn its
pole. Beneath the sign bearing the town's identifying nomenclature, is a large sign (common in Austria, and from what I'm told, they exist in
Germany as well) showing a
little girl and a
little boy, reading "Bitte, nicht so
schnell!" which is German for "Please, not so fast!". The
cheerful expressions on their
faces are just plain wrong in the eyes of some American tourists, given the
context that is
produced by the
similarity between their
township's name and a well-known
English word of ill repute.
Sadly, there is little to be found
online about this
potentially
delightful Austrian
hamlet, as almost any informational search into it will bring you nothing but their town sign and sites which would like to either show their own
photo of themselves next to the sign, or trying to
sell you a
t-shirt bearing a
picture of the
sign, and the few
travel agents I've tried to
ask for
information about the town have told me to
bugger off, thinking I was an average
prank caller. Even an
MP3 of a
phone call to the
town hall I
found on a
website I lost long ago failed to
reveal anything
interesting about the town, aside from the fact that their town's
secretary speaks ein bisschen (a bit) of German despite the fact that she claims not to.
While I recall an
article in
Maxim a few years back having stated that the town has only one
business (a t-shirt
printer specializing in shirts of the town sign), this
information could be old or simply
inaccurate.
Special thanks to
Roninspoon for his
grammatical advice.
Fixed as noted.