What is the best April Fools Day gag has been pulled in your area.

One year the ABC TV had a report that the spaghetti crop had failed. They then showed soggy spaghetti draped over grape vines to show the tragedy.

One of our rich guys Dick Smith talked for weeks before about towing an iceberg from antarctica to Sydney Harbour. On April Fools Day a tug towed a barge in with white sheets draped over it.

The spaghetti crop failure was first aired on BBC I think, they certainly did it in 1957.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/1/newsid_2819000/2819261.stm

Actually it would have fallen flat for many Brits at that time as they wouldn't know what spaghetti was, I didn't, but then I was only ten.

Locally our local media, and in particular the newspaper, does quite a good job. From time to time all the local media actually do a combined one which helps to make it more believable when both radion stations, the television station and the newspaper are all giving news reports on the same item.

One year was the unveiling of a massive development on our north coast, apparently which had been developed in great secrecy. There was a double page spread in the newspaper and even an advertising feature section which is common here for real major projects with the various building companies and subcontractors all getting involved.

One radio station where I used to live was really good at April Fool's jokes and I was usually quick to pick up on their pranks. The one time I got completely fooled was when they reported that the city was imposing a tax on people's dogs. I know that in many cities, you pay a license fee for pets so I thought this was just keeping in line with that. The "new" ruling was that you had to pay a $5.00 fee for every pound your dog weighed. OK, not so bad when your pooch was small and weighed 20 pounds and under, but at the time I owned two large dogs (one was 110 pounds and the other was 62 pounds). When I calculated that I was going to have to pay over $800 in fees I was outraged. It was only when I called my sister to complain about it that I realized (in mid-rant) that I fell for their joke.

Sue, The spaghetti harvest was indeed aired on BBC as a news item as part of a highly respected and serious current affairs program called Panorama, which is probably why it fooled so many people.

Here's the original broadcast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27ugSKW4-QQ

Ian

I remember Richard Dimbleby telling us that spaghetti grew on trees - we hadn't had a television long but we knew who Dimbleby was, he was the commentator on state events and a very serious broadcaster. I don't think I'd ever eaten spaghetti but my parents had when they lived in Malta so they laughed at the report and made me realise it was an April Fool. I went to school the next day to find lots of people talking about it, especially Pam. Pam was one of those very nice but extraordinarily gullible people who believe everything and then can't be persuaded it isn't true. I'm pretty sure she still believes spaghetti is picked. She probably still believes there are wolves on Snowdon too but that's another story.

The Guardian newspaper has always had wonderful April Fool's jokes. My favourite was the Island of San Seriffe - I live in hope that some day it will float near me.

I wrote a quiz about April Fool's Day hoaxes which featured both the Panorama and San Seriffe stories. The San Seriffe one is particularly clever and detailed, but I'm not sure how likely it will for the island to visit Northampton, which didn't have a coastline last time I looked. It might manage to visit me, though.

The Danes got here, they came up the River Nene!

My river's bigger than your river!

Ah but my river has two different pronunciations both of which are correct - one of them's bound to attract that island. Plus the importance of the Mersey is an April Fool joke that only Liverpudlians haven't worked out yet.

Isn't the Nene some kind of goose? I don't have a river with two names, but I can offer the island TWO rivers to choose from. Not only do I have the Mersey on my right, I have the classy Dee on my left. In fact, the top half of the island could visit one and the bottom half visit the other. I'm not sure anyone on Wirral has recovered yet from being moved out of Cheshire into Merseyside - that was a real April Fool joke!