WHEN British Cycling decided to scratch the name of Three Cocks from their official online listings for their Junior Race of South Wales held over the August Bank Holiday weekend, it left residents bemused.

The second half of the village’s name had been replaced with an asterisk.

Where once there were Three Cocks, there were now none.

The people cried, “What have you done with our cocks!”

Yet the silence was deafening.

However, credit where credit is due. A spokesperson for British Cycling has since apologised unreservedly for the mistake and has assured the Chronicle it will not happen again.

They explained, “We apologise for this accidental censorship, which was caused by some overly sensitive filters on our website. Clearly the system decided, inappropriately, to spare our blushes and auto censored the historic Three Cocks village from the Junior Race of South Wales.

“Whilst it’s great to see this fantastic event getting such national attention, we’ll be having a serious look at the new systems we’re implementing to ensure that technology doesn’t override common sense in future!”

There’s nothing left to say but, “Cock-a-doodle-do!”