Wednesday, 1st April 2009
Blog; Fishing for April Fools
Slowly, slowly, catchee monkey is but another way of saying “Gotcha!” when you would have made a fool of someone.
Today, of course, is the day when all those who are duped kick themselves for being tricked into chewing pepper gum or biting into chocolate-covered soap, and ranting at what they thought was vomitus on the dining room table and dog pooh on the wall-to-wall carpet.
The media, of course, is the ideal medium through which to perpetrate this type of joke. Most people will recall the time when Super One Radio told us that owing to unforeseen circumstances, we would have to turn our timepieces back to winter time... and of course, utter confusion reigned – until all was made clear.
It is taken for granted that jokes must only be played upon unsuspecting victims only until noon; however, some people appear never to tire from trying to make fools of others – whatever the date.
My best – and only – April Fool joke was, with hindsight, rather off-colour. I actually succeeded in convincing a number of people that someone had fallen off a balcony. Now, I know it was n to funny at all, but at the time (I was about eight years old), it seemed such a clever thing to do.
That, in fact, is the reasoning behind most April Fool jokes; they seem to be funny to the people who create them, but they could well verge upon cruelty with the victims.
Given the stance that some sections of the Media adopt throughout the year, it is fascinating to see how people believe what they say, even on April Fool’s Day when all the time we ought to be wary that they are trying to feed us a line. Or rather, a hook, line and sinker.
The only difference appears to be that some do it in a spirit of fun, and for others, it is only another facet of their hidden agenda.
The Guardian, which is usually quite a reliable, serious paper, told us this morning that they will be scrapping he broadsheet format, and, instead, will be on Twitter (http://www.metafilter.com/80481/Death-of-another-Newspaper) with the news – for there is no item that cannot be relayed in more than 140 characters. However, the hoax would have been instantly clear to an aficionado of crossword puzzles – for the name of the journalist who allegedly wrote it, Rio Palof, is an anagram of April Fool.
Cashing in, as it were, upon the search for cheaper power sources, the Daily telegraph came up with the story of how, in a project codenamed “Finetic” ‘The Environment Agency's Horizon Scanning Team found the nation's rivers are full of untapped energy in the form of fish migrating upstream. By installing networks of electric prongs along the riverbed, the energy can be captured and fed into the National Grid.’
Since we have no rivers in Malta, one could easily have wondered whether the system could be adapted to make the most of the movements of the caged tuna in local fish farms – and it would be rater interesting to find out whether anyone actually did make any moves to find out.
By the way - the expert quoted in this piece was Gavin Roach, “a world-leading specialist in green technologies based at the Université de Poisson d'Avril”. In French, and April Fool is an April Fish, and this term derives from the ‘game’ of sticking a paper fish to a victim’s back without his noticing.
As an afterthought, there was a quote from the pressure group Freedom for Fishermen, viz. that “it was a potential danger to the four million people in the UK who fish as a hobby.”
These examples show wit, and a distinct absence of malice.... unlike the Daily Mail kid that says the paper has launched an iPhone application that has a “a one-click facility for reporting suspicious behaviour by migrants or gays”, and certain jokes that were relayed on local television screens in a pathetic effort to raise a laugh at the expense of local celebrities and personalities.
The Sun tells us that in order to psych up Andriy Shevchenko Andriy Voronin, just before England plays the World Cup qualifier against Ukraine, this country’s National Anthem, Oi Ukrainy, clocking in a full 6½-minutes, will be played. The Football Association has confirmed rumours that “...any supporter who sits back down or jeers during the performance may face ejection from Wembley before the Group Six match.”
Having seen advertisements for tartan paint, and lots of pictured of “painted cats” I was not in the least taken in by the “factoid” reported in Metro (http://tinyurl.com/d6mzmg) that Farmer Grant Bell has managed to breed the first ever tartan sheep, and that, moreover, he is parading them across London to the tune of bagpipes (what else?).
The chances are that the harmless pranks (a box of day-old pastries by the water dispenser at the office, a mug with a magnet on the bottom, on the roof of a moving car), this morning, were replaced by others that kill two birds with one stone... the other bird going by the name “revenge”.
Yet I believe that tears of laughter are more healing than resentment that will once again build up after jokes that are not really jokes.
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