Murder in Little Steeping -a novel by Mavis Enderby

I'm quite fond of places that sound like people. I once moved to Leighton Buzzard, partly because I liked the name - it sounded to me like the name of a Dickensian villain - a sinister doctor or an avaricious lawyer, perhaps. Now I'm living on the outskirts of Milton Keynes, which has the character of a very confused economist, created out of an unlikely mixture of DNA from Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes. Just down the road, we seem to be back in Dickensian territory (or perhaps Thackeray World), graced as we are by the presence of several minor but self-important aristocrats, such as Husborne Crawley, Marston Moretaine, Clifton Reynes and Yardley Gobion.

I know I'm not the only person to have a soft spot for places that might be people - the comedian Boothby Graffoe takes his stage name from the eponymous Lincolnshire village. He's not a comedian I'd I'd make a particular effort go out (or stay in) to listen to, but I like the name. So I was rather pleased to read, in the Feedback column of this week's New Scientist, that a Lincolnshire road sign reading "To Mavis Enderby and Old Bolingbroke" has been defaced, (or possibly improved) by some local wit adding the words "the gift of a baby son."