The pronunciation of names in UK English is messed up. ‘Magdalene’ is pronounced ‘Maudlin’. ‘Edinburgh’ is pronounced ‘Edinbra’. You can count on the ‘w’ being superfluous: ‘Norwich’ is ‘Norrich’, ‘Berwick’ is ‘Berrick’, ‘Warwick’ is ‘Warrick’, ‘Bromwich’ is ‘Bromich’.

Interestingly, ‘Sandwich’ is not ‘Sandich’.

The thing that drives me nuts is the ‘ces’ syllable, which is completely absent in speech.

Gloucester = Gloster
Leicester = Lester
Worcester = Wooster

I was complaining about this to Owen. Owen was saying, ‘I was in this town near Oxford, it had a ridiculous name…’

‘Oh! I KNOW! Bister!’ I jumped in, naming the town spelt ‘Bicester’. ‘Look, I can handle Gloster and Lester and even Wooster. But Bister, that’s just perverse!’

‘It’s better than Toaster,’ Owen said calmly.

‘Toaster?’

‘Yes, there’s another town called Toaster — T O W C E S T E R.’