April Fools Day

Today is the first of April. The first of April is traditionally called All Fools Day, or April Fools Day. It is a day for mischief, or playing tricks on people; and for getting people to believe things which are not true. Today is the 50th Anniversary of one of the most famous April Fools Day tricks. It was 1957. BBC television had a weekly documentary programme called Panorama. Panorama was a serious and respected programme, reporting on news events around the world. On 1 April, Panorama included a report about the problems facing spaghetti farmers in Switzerland. There were pictures of people picking spaghetti from spaghetti trees and laying it in the sunshine to dry. But the spaghetti farmers were afraid that a late frost would damage the spaghetti crop, and destroy their livelihood. Fifty years ago, most British people did not know much about Italian food like spaghetti. Many people apparently accepted the documentary at face value. Some people say that it was many years before they found out that spaghetti does not really grow on trees.(No. Spaghetti really does not grow on trees. It was a joke. Alright?) The Panorama report was a spoof. Ever since then, it has been common for newspapers to carry spoof stories on 1 April. So this morning, I opened my newspaper eagerly, to find the spoof story. There was a story that the London Transport lost property office had just found the owner of an urn containing human ashes which had been left on the underground eight years...