April Fools

Looking for the April Fool article in today's paper, I found so many candidates that I'm left wondering if the whole issue is a send-up. The intentional piece of tomfoolery is the 'leaked' news that London is planning to share the 2012 Olympics with Paris, but there are unbelievable elements in a number of other articles too.

The online version of The Sunday Telegraph has a technical hitch at present, so I can't make a link to the Olympics feature. The gags include holding the opening ceremony in Paris because 'the French are very good at fireworks' and also because it would help to regenerate a 'run-down' area. The operation to get the athletes back to London after the opening ceremony is being dubbed 'a sporting Dunkirk' with Eurostar providing specially adapted carriages for the athletes to continue exercising and stretching during the journey. Apparently negotiations are ongoing between Tessa Jowell and her French counterpart, the excitable Avril Bouffonnerie.

Among the news items that I would like to think might be April Fool jokes is the one about the £91,000 three year research project to find out how to bake biscuits. Ask your granny, it won't cost more than a phone call! Then there is the story about a group of tax inspectors flying off to Hong Kong to ask Mickey Mouse for advice on how to raise more money from us to fund their next holidays.

The next contender is the story about dogs being issued with asbos to keep them from fouling public parks. This is only slightly less silly than the introduction of the Animal Welfare Act, which requires pet owners to ensure their pets can "express normal behaviour patterns".

Perhaps the funniest headline of all is Clean power is coming soon, scientists believe.
Any sentence containing the words 'scientists believe' is sure to get me laughing whether it is April Fools' Day or not!