Driving home from London along the M4 on a midweek evening last week, I smiled as I passed Wooton Basset, the name of the Wiltshire town which always reminds me of a packet of sweets.
As it was late, and despite my obligatory power nap at Reading services, I was very tired and my thoughts started to wander to other places in the UK that have edible names:
- Sandwich
- Cheddar
- East Ham
- Appleby
- Scone
- Strawberry Bank
- Bakewell
Having exhausted this little game, and not even being at the Bath junction, I then turned my thoughts to places named after animals - a natural progression in my carnivorous mind from items of food to things that had the potential to become such.
My list included:
- Swanage
- Cowfold
- Birdlip (I know, I know, the d is silent in the local pronunciation)
- Dog Village (Devon)
- Duck End (Essex)
- Fishponds
- Goose Green
- Barking (stretching a point, really)
- Wolf's Castle
- Leighton Buzzard (of course)
From there, for reasons not clear to me then or since, I started to muse on place names that suggested a location best avoided:
- Gravesend
- Grimbsy
- Downham
- Bury
- Saddington
- Dulverton
- Lower Slaughter
Inevitably, I then turned to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum and started to list happy-sounding places. I found fewer such places coming to mind:
- Luckington
- Helpston
- Lover (in Wiltshire)
- Fairfield
Before I knew it, I had passed junction 18 and had caught my first sight of the orange glow of the Bristol conurbation from the top of the hill.
Game over.
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