Spam filters fight historic name

When 19th century tea merchant Frederick Horniman decided to name the London museum he set up after himself, little did he realise the trouble this might cause in the era of email and the internet.

Up to a tenth of all emails sent to or from the Horniman Museum are now rejected by computer filters designed to weed out smutty junk messages. Some users trying to access the museum's website at www.horniman.ac.uk have found themselves blocked, or redirected to more risque sites with similar names.

And a theatre company in eastern England complained that attempts to notify schools of an upcoming production of Dick Whittington had fallen foul of strict filters used by education establishments.