'Stop stealing our F**king signs'

The mayor of an Austrian town called 'F**king' has appealed to British tourists to stop stealing the road signs.

Siegfried Hauppl said the small town always attracted a lot of attention from tourists driving up from nearby Salzburg to pose for pictures in front of the signs.

But he said that, while the money they spent in the area was welcome, locals were fed up with having to replace the signs because people had been stealing them as souvenirs.

He said: "We had a vote last year on whether to rename the town, but decided to keep it as it is.

"After all, F**king has existed for 800 years, probably when a Mr F**k or the F**k family moved into the area. The 'ing' was added as a word for settlement."

Apparently the villagers didn't find out about the English meaning of the word until British and American soldiers stationed in the area in 1945 started arriving in large numbers.

Hauppl said: "We all know what it means now, but for us F**king is F**king - we don't give it a second thought."

Franz Duernsteiner, an expert on bizarre Austrian village names, said the residents of F**king were actually very "conservative" people.

He said: "Most of them can speak English, and when someone asks them where they come from they are a little ashamed to say it."

Residents of two other Austrian communities, Windpassing and W**k on the Lake, suffered a similar reluctance, he added.