Why am I doing this?

Good question. I like words; I like the ability to express sensitive nuance one minute and blunt invective the next. If I have any regrets in life, one might be that I didn't learn Latin at school, to benefit from a deeper understanding of our language. It is therefore purely happenstance that on occasion the wheels in my mind should turn slowly in a particular sequence, leading to 'discoveries' when I really look at a word and infer its roots. Life is full of these minor, but nonetheless pleasant, epiphanies.

This work has little to do with the preceding statements, save the looking at a place name, and finding a resonance, a suggestion of possible meaning. Much of what follows has been spawned by a skewed imagination reared on "Do not adjust your set," Monty Python, Spike Milligan and the Goons, Pete & Dud, Fry & Laurie and many other seminal manifestations of all that was and is great about British comedy over the past half-century - not forgetting dear departed Douglas Adams.

I have long been fascinated by names - of places and people - and how they came about. Smith, Butcher, Fletcher and co. are easy to understand, but Hancock, Sidebottom (or Sidebotham, if you will), Nether Wallop and so on, seem to exist as a challenge to keeping a straight face. Where, how, did they originate? Piddletrenthide is quite delightful; we know that this village derives its name from the River Piddle, but who thought of calling the river by that name? ... or did the vernacular meaning of the word come from the river?

By way of further explanation of the content to follow (or perhaps just to illustrate the kind of off-centre thought-processes that have led to it), I would recall the occasions in school, when we played word-association games. It often seemed to happen that my mind would make a double leap (or perhaps a hop, skip and jump), so that in the potential sequence field - farm - lamb - mint sauce, my mind would take lamb as read and move rapidly on to mint sauce, leaving the others somewhat bemused. I just couldn't help it.

I hope, dear reader, that you will enjoy this work. Should you fail to understand parts of it (or indeed, any of it), then don't worry - it's not you, it's me.

Note: I am keen to draw the reader's attention to the fact that no disrespect at all is intended towards any place whose name is featured in this work. All the disrespect is aimed squarely at the annoying prats, frustrating situations, etc, to which those names have been (temporarily) assigned.