british traditions

BRITISH TRADITIONS

April Fool's Day

The history of April Fool's Day only goes back to the 16th century.

Legend says … April Fools Day started with a change in the calendar. The “new year” celebration was moved from April 1st to Jan 1st.

Some people did not hear about this change for many years. Other ignored the change, and continued to celebrate as they had always. These people were called “fools”.

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In the 1500’s, some people began playing tricks on the “fools”. Over time, April 1st became a day of playing tricks, and a challenge – a competition of sorts - to see who could come up with the best prank.

Today, almost 500 years later, April 1st is still a day when tricks are played on people in a spirit of fun. Anyone who plays a mean trick is just being mean. For the rest of us, April Fool's Day is a challenging game of trickery!

The ancient Greeks would have loved April Fool's Day. They so adored being clever. It’s easy to imagine the ancient Athenians concocting their plots and chanting their victories, and the ancient Spartans rigging their barracks and roaring with laughter.

A special day put aside just for trickery, with everyone forewarned that others were out to fool them the challenge of it would have greatly appealed to the ancient Greeks. But, they did NOT create this holiday.

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CBBC's Newsround website claims the planets of the Solar system will be renamed after characters from The Lord of the Rings - Earth will be named Gandalf.

Both The Independent and The Today Programme claimed Brian Eno had crafted an electronic remix of the theme tune of the radio soap opera The Archers to replace the theme that had been used for over 50 years.

An advert by BMW claimed new 'SHEF technology' would allow car drivers to cook their evening meals whilst driving home.

The Sun reported that British Police were fitting hawks with speed cameras to catch lawbreaking motorists.

The Daily Mail included photographs purporting to be the Queen gambling on horse racing amongst her subjects at a local Bookmaker.

Google announced to start interviewing candidates for their new lunar hosting and research center. An email to the address listed return.

April Fool's Jokes In 2004

Mozilla News reported that Google would be acquiring the Mozilla Foundation, as a whole. BMW printed a full page ad in a number of national UK newspapers (including The Times,

The Guardian, The Independent, and the Daily Mail) saying that in 2007 the EU was to ban right-handed cars being driven in mainland Europe (effectively banning every British car), and that they had invented steering wheel-less technology.

The Today programme on BBC Radio 4 reported that, as a result of an obscure 19th century rule of succession of the House of Saxe-Coburg, Camilla Parker-Bowles's son, Thomas Parker-Bowles, who is older than Prince William, will become second in line to the British throne following the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla on 8 th April 2005.

The Guardian reported that Charles, Prince of Wales had been appointed 'Countryside Tsar' by Tony Blair in the run-up to the imminent general election. The ban on foxhunting will be revoked, as long as it is made into a sport of the people.

The Sun reported that EU bureaucrats wanted to ban April Fools' Day because of physical and mental injury caused to the victims of jokes;

The Sun also reported that gypsies had camped in Windsor Castle, claiming a centuries-old right to pitch tents there.


On Newsround, a BBC news program for children, presenter Jake Humphrey announced that David Beckham will not be playing in the 2006 World Cup as his parents are Scottish.

On 2-Ten FM in the United Kingdom, station claims that an elephant is causing traffic problems on the M4.

The Daily Mail announced that the door at Number 10 Downing Street that had been black for 270 years had been painted red by Tony Blair.

The Sun published an article about a penguin found on the River Thames. The article had a comment from Lil Faroop, an anagram of April Fool.


BMW: As ever BMW UK ran an April Fools' newspaper ad; this year's, in The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and The Observer announced a new instant messaging technology that allows drivers to display text (in mirror writing) on their windshield to "communicate advice, warnings, helpful driving tips and salutations ... without even lifting a finger".

Burning Man: The annual festival announced on their website announces that the annual theme will be changed from "The Green Man", a nature related theme, to "Sports", "to celebrate man's relationship to games of skill, and competitive challenges with small round balls".

Christ Church Cathedral, New Zealand: According to a newspaper report, the cathedral was to be pulled down next week due to structural damage, and the site was purchased by a Russian businessman for a hotel and aquarium. The office of Dean of Christchurch received numerous phone calls about the story from concerned locals.

Daily Mirror magazine Celebs on Sunday, claimed that Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair was to become a full time actor once he left Number 10 - starting off as Catherine Tate's Nan character's boyfriend.

DeviantArt released a news article stating that the Help Desk was going to become a pay-only feature. Letters in the article were bolded which spelled out "April fools" and some punctuation, when clicked, linked to an image announcing the joke.


Daily Mirror: announced a new type of dog racing: Dog Racing on Ice. Google: introduced a scratch-and-sniff feature for certain books on Google

books. Guardian: announced Carla Bruni, France's First Lady, was to head a

government initiative to improve style amongst Britons. The Sun: reported that Nicolas Sarkozy was to enter surgery to make him

as tall as his wife, Carla Bruni, after being subject to ridicule over his height during his trip to London.

Virgin Media: announced that the US was to scrap the dollar and join the Euro.


YouTube invited some users to look at a new "viewing experience", which actually caused the whole layout including the video they were watching to flip upside down.

Ice cream company Ben & Jerry's created a fake Web site, Cyclone Dairy, which claimed to only sell milk coming from cloned cows.

The Guardian announced that it was shutting down both its print edition and Web site, turning instead to a Twitter-only format. "Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters," they said.

Hotels.com ran an advertisement offering hotel room bookings on the moon which would be offered on European websites starting at £800 a night.


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