April Fools!

April Fool’s day is a widely recognized and celebrated day when people play practical jokes and hoaxes on each other on 1st April.

Many believe that this day of celebration originated from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392) where the vain cock, Chauntecleer, is tricked by a fox. While others believe that it originated because of the change of calendars: In 1582 Pope Gregory introduced a new calendar called the Gregorian calendar (which we still use today). He introduced this because the old calendar, called the Julian calendar, was ahead by 10 days as each year was a little too long. In the old calendar, New Year was celebrated from 25th March to 1st April; but as we know New Year in the current calendar is celebrated on 1st April. In France, people would forget the date of New Year on the Gregorian calendar and still celebrated it on 1st April; for this reason people would play tricks on them and call them “April Fools”.

In many cultures, tradition dictates that the pranking period must end at noon on 1st April, and any jokes attempted after that hour will bring bad luck to the person behind it. In addition, any who fail to respond with a good humour to tricks and jokes are said to attract bad luck themselves. However, any victims of joking are entitled to “turn the tables” after the hour of noon with the retort “April Fool’s gone past... and you’re the biggest fool at last!”

Although April Fool’s day sounds like a day to be cruel to others and trick them into stupidity; it should be noted that not all April Fool superstitions are negative. For example: Males who are fooled by a good-looking female are said to be fated to marry her, or at least enjoy a good friendship with her!

One of the most famous hoaxes was on 1st April, 1957 when the British news show, Panorama, broadcast a three-minute segment about a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland. The success of the crop was said to be due to both an unusually mild winter and the "virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil." The audience heard Richard Dimbleby, the show's highly respected presenter, discussing the details of the spaghetti crop as they watched video footage of a Swiss family pulling pasta off spaghetti trees and placing it into baskets. The segment concluded with the assurance that, "For those who love this dish, there's nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti." The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest hoax generated an enormous response. Hundreds of people phoned the BBC wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this query the BBC diplomatically replied, "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." To this day the Panorama broadcast remains one of the most famous and popular April Fool's Day hoaxes of all time. It is also believed to be the first time the medium of television was used to stage an April Fool's Day hoax.

Nowadays, April Fool jokes tend to involve persuading someone to do something silly; like look for hen’s teeth, striped paint, a long weight, a left-handed screwdriver or some other non-existent thing!
So remember to keep your wits about you, to avoid being fooled,
and take it as a joke, or it will be no fun at all!