List of ABC Talers Who Are Having Affairs

HAHAHAHA!! brilliant. *hooting*

Ha ha ha ha ha This is brilllllllllllll will put a big smile on face for rest of day ..... it being the 1 April ........... A cracker

ab fab!

Don't miss her at all! *grumpy at bein' conned*

Come on, Andrea, don't be grumpy - enter the spirit of it. You must have played some April Fool pranks yourself. Go on - cheer yourself up and tell us all about them.

Are you kidding? They'd be censored! And I'm not really grumpy...

waking half sleep son up to make his sister breakfast in bed for her birthday ..... which he did 'cause he hadn't brought her anything ...... he was not amused when she told him after he woken her with a mug of tea and plate of toast that it wasn't her birthday ..... she wasn't amused either it was four in the morning ........

Nice one in the Guardian about Barnsley remodelling itself as a walled Tuscan hill town.

3) Sidd Finch: Sports Illustrated, in its edition that ran during the first week of April 1985, published a story about a new rookie pitcher who planned to play for the Mets. His name was Sidd Finch (short for Siddhartha Finch), and he could reportedly throw a ball with startling, pinpoint accuracy at 168 mph. By way of comparison, no one had previously ever been measured throwing a ball faster than 103 mph. Surprisingly, Sidd Finch had never even played baseball before. Instead, he had mastered the "art of the pitch" in a Tibetan monastery under the guidance of the "great poet-saint Lama Milaraspa." Unfortunately, there was still some uncertainty about whether Finch would actually play for the Mets. He was still trying to decide between baseball and his other great love, the french horn. Nevertheless, Mets fans everywhere managed to ignore this uncertainty, as well as the strange nature of Sidd Finch's past, and celebrated the fact that their team had acquired a pitcher who could throw at 168 mph. Sports Illustrated was flooded with requests for more information. In reality, this legendary player sprang from the imagination of George Plimpton. Reason for Selection: This article remains (probably) the most famous story that Sports Illustrated ever ran. It is a testament to the power of unchecked enthusiasm for a sports team over reason that anyone ever believed it. 2) San Serriffe: In 1977 the British newspaper the Guardian published a special seven-page supplement in honour of the tenth anniversary of San Serriffe, a small island republic located in the Indian Ocean. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. It was said to consist of only two islands: Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. Adding credibility to the supplement were the paid advertisements that ran in it. For instance, Texaco offered the public the chance to compete to win a two-week trip to Cocobanana Beach in San Serriffe. Kodak asked readers to send in their favorite pictures from vacations spent in San Serriffe. The Guardian's phones were ringing all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic island. Perhaps the public was attracted by the evident typographical bent of the islanders (the majority of the island names referred to font names and other typesetting terminology). Reason for Selection: This charming hoax had an enormous influence within the British media. For better or worse, it was largely its example that inspired the other British papers to fully embrace the tradition of April Fool's Day. Ever since then they have diligently worked every year to make us believe stories about flying rabbits, thermal ties, one-way highways, and interfering brassieres. San Serriffe itself has become a running gag in the Guardian, surfacing in a new location every few years because of a bizarre, geological phenomemon that causes it to drift slowly around the world. 1) The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest: In 1957 the British TV show Panorama introduced its viewers to a family of rural, Swiss, spaghetti farmers. As the show's anchor, Richard Dimbleby, strolled along, viewers saw the Swiss family behind him industriously pulling strands of spaghetti down from spaghetti trees. Dimbleby referred to the difficulty such small farms had competing against "the vast spaghetti plantations in the Po valley." Nevertheless, he said, the farm had been much aided by "the virtual disappearance of the spaghetti weevil, the tiny creature whose depradations have caused much concern in the past." The special report concluded with the glowing recommendation that, "For those who love this dish, there's nothing like real, home-grown spaghetti." Apparently much of the British public agreed, because hundreds of them phoned the BBC trying to learn how to grow their own spaghetti trees. The BBC offered this dry reply: "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." Though it sounds ridiculous today, what made this hoax believable to the British in 1957 was the fact that, at that time, many considered spaghetti to be a rather exotic, foreign food. Reason for Selection: First place proved to be an easy choice because this April Fool's Day hoax is generally acknowledged to be second to none in its believability, absurdity, influence, and originality. It is not only the most famous April Fool's Day hoax of all time, but also it was one of the first hoaxes to be perpetrated through the new medium of TV. Its success directly inspired the media frenzy that now occurs every year on April Fool's Day. More at: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com ps Any good ones from yesterday?

A Chinese man who threatened to bomb a telecommunications centre in Beijing as an April Fool's joke has been arrested for "spreading false rumours and affecting public order", China News Service said Tuesday. The man, identified as Wang, found his home surrounded by police while he slept Sunday night after he telephoned the switchboard operator at the Beijing long-distance telecommunications centre with the threat. "Don't come to work tomorrow, I will blow up the building," Wang said, according to the agency. Once arrested, the hapless prankster said he had not meant any harm. "Tomorrow is April Fool's Day in the West, I only wanted to have a joke", Wang said.

*phew* my secret is safe