Where was to be San Serriffe's original location?

gtho4

Atlantic Ocean, near the Canary Islands On April 1, 1977 the British newspaper The Guardian published a seven-page "special report" about San Serriffe, a small republic located in the Indian Ocean consisting of several semi-colon-shaped islands. A series of articles described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. The report generated a huge response. The Guardian's phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. However, San Serriffe did not actually exist. The report was an elaborate April Fool's Day joke-one with a typographical twist, since numerous details about the island (such as its name) alluded to printer's terminology ... The most singular feature of San Serriffe's geography was its mobility. Due to a constant process of erosion that removed sand from the west coast and deposited it on the east coast, the islands were moving eastward at the rate of 1400 meters a year. It was anticipated that the islands would collide with Sri Lanka in 2011. To slow down this movement, boats constantly ferried sand from the east coast back to the west Initially the Guardian staff had located San Serriffe in the Atlantic, off the Canaries. But on March 27, two jets collided in the fog at Tenerife Airport, causing the death of 583 people. Sensing that it would be in bad taste to locate their spoof island in the region of this disaster, the Guardian staffers moved the islands, at the last minute, to the Indian Ocean. This relocation inspired the idea that the islands should be migratory. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/Hoaxipedia/San_Serriffe/ Jun 15 11, 12:05 AM