The Duke of Edinburgh meets volunteers and children involved in Arsenal's "Double Club" literacy and junior football scheme - just the sort of creditable initiative that would fall foul of prudish filtering software. Photograph: UPPA
It all started with a diary item earlier this week noting that the trade union Amicus had installed filtering software for its internet forums to detect and repress any words or letter combinations deemed offensive. This had the unfortunate consequence of neutering several entirely innocent British placenames, rendering Blackpool as Black***l and Scunthorpe as S****horpe.
I should of course have guessed, but the item produced quite the largest postbag of my tenure as Guardian Diary editor. Am I right in suspecting there is a schoolboy streak in Guardian readers that is sadly under-catered for? In any event, among the fine placenames submitted yesterday by readers as likely to trigger Amicus's fiendishly efficient filtering software are Penistone (Yorkshire), Fugit (Kentucky), Titlis (Switzerland) and Muff (County Donegal).
Other suggestions were Onancock (Virginia), Butztown (Pennsylvania), Prickwillow (Cambs) and Gofuku (Japan). Also Cockermouth (Cumbria), Climax (Missouri), Mary's Inlet (Florida) and Ecumsecum (Nova Scotia). Not to mention of course our personal favourite, Queensland's Mount Mee.
This morning's postbag brings the Orkneys hamlet of Twatt and a road junction outside Essendon in Hertfordshire where, we are assured, Cucumber Lane meets Cum Cum Hill. We are further alerted by a motorcycling reader to the existence of a small town in Kentucky by the name of Big Bone, succeeded a mere five miles up the road by Beaverlick.
Can you come up with anything better?
