Hard to be Horniman

The Horniman Museum, a natural history museum in London, is having problems getting its marketing message to the public. It seems that e-mail filtering programs think it's trying to entice visitors in a less than chaste way.

A representative told a local paper that the museum is "currently experiencing some problems with our domain name for e-mail and Web traffic," when spam filters misread the name.

"The blocking of e-mail and Web traffic is a frustrating scenario because the Horniman Museum is a much-loved and well-respected part of the south London community," the paper quoted Antony Watson as saying.

According to the report, some schools have blocked access to the museum's Web site entirely, even though the most risque artifact on exhibit was a "4,000-year-old sculpture, once thought to be a brothel sign" temporarily on view in April.