Look out; look out there’s a prankster about!
If you asked my late father-in-law what he remembered about 1957 he’d lecture you for an hour about the Russians launching Sputnik 1. If you’d asked my own dad and he would have smiled and said, ‘The great Panorama spaghetti hoax!’
My dad loved documentaries almost as much as he loved a good joke so when the BBC ran their now infamous spoof programme about the spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland, he was in his element. Spaghetti was considered an exotic food at the time and my father had never tasted it. He was caught out along with the majority of the British public and laughed along with the joke. The fact that the distinguished broadcaster Richard Dimbleby was in on it tickled him all the more.
It is believed that this was the first time the medium of television had been used to stage an April Fools’ Day joke.
No-one knows the true origin of April Fools’ Day. It might date back to the Roman spring festival of Hilaria, a time of jollity: the most popular theory though is that it crossed the channel from France.
In 1582 Pope Gregory switched the French calendar from the Roman, Julian one to the new, shorter, Gregorian calendar. Under the old calendar New Year was celebrated from March 25th to April 1st. The first day of the Gregorian calendar is, if course, January 1st.
Some refused to accept the new calendar and still celebrated New Year on April 1st. People called them poisson d’Avril or April fish. ‘Poisson’ is in fact a corruption of the word passion and is a reference to the mocking and tormenting of Jesus by the
Romans at his crucifixion. It definitely loses something in translation though!
In England, April Fools’ Day is a bit of a misnomer as we only have until 12 noon to play our pranks; not really fair when the Scots enjoy a full 48 hours of ‘hunting the gowk’ (cuckoo).
It’s always worth watching or reading the news on April 1st as many programmes and newspapers run hoax articles. Previous jokes have included: • A full page BMW car advertisement detailing their new ‘cross-channel’ model which could be either right or left hand drive, had pedals on both sides and a moveable steering wheel.
• A report on dehydrated water, claiming that a special powder could be converted to water by exposing it to UV light.
• A report about the discovered remains of a new dinosaur which apparently had a Roman coin in its stomach.
I always think that the best pranks are those which involve sending someone on a ‘fool’s errand’, for a left handed spanner, striped paint or a long weight.
Try it and see for yourself. But be careful when you do it or you may be told: April Fools’ has been and gone; you’re the fool and I am none.
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