I spend a lot of time thinking about the differences between the cultures of the countries I’ve lived in, but once in a while, it’s fun to relax and enjoy one of the more puerile aspects of living abroad: laughing at inadvertently funny names. For instance, here in Innsbruck, and Austria:

• Mega Putz: http://www.voelser-wirtschaft.at/neues_archiv/neues_archiv5.htm#putz – actually the guy’s name looks Turkish, rather than Germanic.

• http://ass-team.eu/ – “Ass Team”?

• http://jakschitz.at/ – there are lots of ads for Jakschitz around here.

• There are some cars around here with license plate holders tagged “Manfred Wanker”: http://www.hotfrog.at/Firmen/Manfred-Wanker

• Naturally, ‘schmuck’ is German for “jewelry”, so there are various signs around for that.

• The famous ‘fucker bus’: http://flickr.com/photos/cunaldo/157532914/ although this is German rather than anything local.

For some reason, there are more of these in German than in Italian, but this next one almost make up for it:

• http://www.fartneongroup.com/ – true to their business of selling neon signs, they have a bright neon sign next to a major roadway spelling out FART.

• http://www.fag.it – technical publishing.