Perhaps the most celebrated and most widely believed April Fool's Day prank was the one perpetrated by the BBC's Panorama programme in 1957 when they declared that a combination of the mild winter and the eradication of the dreaded spaghetti weevil meant that Swiss farmers were reaping a bumper pasta crop that year. Even today, the average Briton consumes just 2.5 kg of pasta per year[1]; sixty years ago, the average Brit was barely aware of pasta's existence, let alone where it came from, so the idea that it might grow on trees was clearly taken as perfectly plausible by a considerable number of viewers, some of whom contacted the BBC asking how to grow their own spaghetti trees.
Over the years we have become increasingly more suspicious and less susceptible to being taken in by the outlandish stories that appear in the press or on TV on All Fool's Day, to the point where no doubt a number of completely authentic, if somewhat unlikely, stories get dismissed each year as wind ups. This year's crop of hoaxes included the Domino's letterbox warmer to keep your pizza hot and the supposed marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, neither of which stood up to much scrutiny. Slightly more plausible were reports of a new Bronze Age figure near the famous White Horse at Uffington, and that Sir David Attenborough was to front a BBC documentary about the Grime music[2]. To show how plausible that latter one was, it convinced the Grime artist Stormzy, who went as far as sending the BBC a lengthy tweet expressing his displeasure at the prospect.
Most April Fool stories have the longevity of a mayfly, and our traditional means of consuming them - the press and TV - have meant that they only resurface when tales are told of past years' pranks, but now, with the ubiquity of the internet, things are different. Anyone who has a social media account will know that from time to time, old news resurfaces on their timeline. Hence, stories of the death of a celebrity will re-emerge: Leslie Nielsen, Tony Hart, and Peter Falk are just three of the people who have died twice, their original deaths having been re-reported on social media and them being mourned all over again. Which is where the internet gives April Fool stories the durability that other sections of the media do not.
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| Leslie Nielsen, born 1926, died 2010...and 2016 |
Anyone who has ever browsed the internet knows how easy it is for a search for a Yorkshire Pudding recipe to escalate into reading an article about sheep farming in the Scottish islands in three clicks, so suddenly accidentally encountering an article about polar bears being found in the Hebrides is entirely possible. Helpfully, the Daily Telegraph website, where the story about the bear originally appeared, has since updated the page to make it clear that it was a hoax, but not all internet sites bother. Therefore, while the somewhat improbable stories one sees on the net may be scrutinised for a week or so after 1st April, if you read the same story in July or December, how finely tuned are your critical faculties? Not so much, would be my guess. So when Nokia genuinely announced in March this year that they were relaunching their iconic 3310 model, no doubt a lot of people started scouring the web for more information and may have chanced upon a story from 2014 about that particular phone making a comeback - except that was an April Fool[3]. That is a light-hearted matter, and while it may be potentially embarrassing for anyone repeating it, it does no harm. Others may be more damaging, however.
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| Nokia 3310 mocked up for an April Fool. Shame it isn't real. |
April Fool stories differ from the more insidious fake news story thanks to their (normally) implausible nature and the fact that even the publishers debunk them fairly rapidly, but as well as these two types of story, we are increasingly confronted with the tales of outrage. These are much beloved of certain news outlets, The Daily Mail and The Daily Express being prime candidates. A couple of weeks ago, for example The Daily Express explosively announced, "Using a McDonalds drive thru could land you a £1,000 FINE and a driving BAN," because, they said motorists using the Apple Pay or Android Pay apps on their mobile phones would infringe the law that makes it an offence to touch your phone while behind the wheel. The Highway Code lists other things that it suggests ought to be avoided while driving, like listening to loud music, changing a CD or tuning the radio, eating and drinking, smoking, and arguing with your passengers, all on the grounds that these are distractions. Equally, fumbling for loose change, extracting notes from your wallet and paying the cashier for your large Big Mac meal might be seen as distractions, certainly just as much - if not more so - presenting a mobile phone to a card reader. And according to Greater Manchester Police, it would be an offence for a driver to pay at McDonald's with an app on their mobile unless the engine was off and the handbrake engaged. When asked for comment, McDonald's said they hoped that, "common sense (would be) used when the police are applying the rules of this law.” And so say all of us.
This sort of story - normally the preserve of the silly season, when newspapers have no real news to report - has become more prevalent, largely due to news -and I use the word loosely - expanding to fill the space available to report it. Much debate followed in the comments section on this story as to whether a McDonalds drive thru[4] constituted the road or public highway, or whether the law would apply if it is deemed private land. That, plus the fact that I am writing about it now, means that a considerable amount of time and effort has been expended on what to all intents and purposes is a hypothetical question and not real news at all. Should the day ever dawn when a motorist is prosecuted for paying for their takeaway using Apple Pay, then we will officially have arrived in Hell in a handcart, but at least the story will be worth talking about.
Oh, and in case you wondered, the story on the Express website was datelined 31st March, so not an April Fool - although somehow it might as well have been.
[1] By comparison, average annual consumption in Italy is 26kg per person. Source: http://www.internationalpasta.org
[2] For my fellow old fogies, Grime, apparently, is "a form of dance music influenced by UK garage, characterized by machine-like sounds."
[4] I dislike 'thru' but use it for the sake of consistency.
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