Fool for a day…..

Pinch, punch, first of the month, so the old saying goes. But the 1st of April is a particularly funny start to the month because it is April Fools Day. Here at the Oakeley Arms Hotel in Snowdonia, we love a good practical joke or two so it got us to thinking just why the 1st of April is the day for all things tomfoolery and funny.

The origins of April Fools Day are ancient and entwined with literature and culture. In his Canterbury Tales, Chaucer tells the tale of a vain cockerel who was tricked by a fox on the “thirty second” day of March – or the 1st of April, and in Medieval times, popular writer John Aubrey named the day a “fooles holy day”.  And one other theory is that in some European countries New Year was celebrated on the 1st April, up until the mid 18th century, and so to the other countries where the tradition was to celebrate the new year at the beginning of January, the April holidays were seen as foolish and so April Fools was born.

Joker! Image by saine on sxc.hu

Whatever the origins, April Fools Day is still celebrated across the world today. The tradition goes that a joke or trick is played, and then “April Foooooooooool” is shouted at the unlucky recipient. But, the trick must be played before noon – anytime after and it is the tricky trickster who becomes the fool!

There have been some cracking stunts pulled over the years, all in the name of April Fools. One of the most famous was the BBC’s “Spaghetti Trees” joke in the 1950’s. They reported from a “Swiss” spaghetti farm, showing the workers harvesting the strands of pasta from trees, and celebrating the eradication of the dreaded pest the “spaghetting weavil”. Apparently the BBC was flooded with thousands of requests from viewers about where they could purchase their own spaghetti plants!

A few years later in 2008, the BBC again pulled an April Fools when they reported on a new breed of flying penguins – complete with elaborate video footage and voice-over! And an even sneakier hoax happened in the 1970s when astronomer Patrick Moore told Radio 2 listeners that because of an alignment of planets, the world would experience a feeling of weightlessness at a precise time in the morning. Hundreds of listeners called in to say that they indeed has felt lighter, some claimed to have floated out of bed and one lucky listener called in to report she was “wafted from their chairs and orbited gently around the room”!!

So, come on and get your thinking caps on; you’ve got the rest of the morning to pull off that prank and make someone an April Fool!! Have fun.

Go on, have a giggle! Image by surfkid74 on sxc.hu