Success story Russell Ash

To support Potty, Fartwell and Knob, Extraordinary but True Names of British People, which was a UK bestseller in 2007, the author Russell Ash has created some entertaining little gizmos on his admirable website.

If you don’t believe that real people existed with names like these, you need to have a look at the site or buy the book. The names reflect everything from musical instruments (Banjo Thomas, Priscilla Trumpet, et al) to sports (Tennis Nelson and Rugby Thrower) and drinking (Betsy Binge and Mary L. Blotto), and some of the author’s all-time favourites, including Hephzibah Gromit, Benoni Trampleasure, Philadelphia Bunnyface and Zenobia Urine.

There’s also an entertaining Name Randomizer which can give hours of slightly smutty fun from the 3,000 names in the book and a Potty Poster which can be printed out to go in the smallest room in the house.

Here’s just one review from the British Press (Boyd Tonkin in the Independent), which gives the flavour of the book: ‘I can see no possible justification for a puerile and tasteless compendium that panders to the lowest barrel-scraping grade of British bodily-functions ‘humour’ – apart from the fact that it may well make you laugh like a hyena.’

Russell Ash’s clever site shows what can be done to create an intriguing, content-rich writer’s website, and how much an author can do to stimulate interest in their book – although it has to be said that not many authors have quite such entertaining material to work with!

Russell Ash’s website

To buy from Amazon UK

Not available from Amazon US