Ou Est Les Poissons D’Avril De Printemps?

Maybe it’s best all round we just forget about April Fool’s day. Sometimes people can get just a tad overinvolved…

[Warning, NSFW]

There’s drollery, and then there’s bullying, and I call that mean.

The British daily papers have traditionally celebrated April Fools day with varying degrees of success. Remember Sans Seriffe, and the spaghetti harvest? But people these days are differerently credulous and require much more winding-up than used to be the case.

This is how I rate today’s UK papers’ efforts:

The Guardian: “Carla Bruni To Advise UK On Style”. Nice try, but the byline ‘Avril Poisson’ gave it away before the article even began. 3/10, more of an ‘uh’ than a chuckle.

Daily Mirror: “Free school meal for every pupil in bold plan to boost kids’ health “. Is that it? Or is it this? Or maybe this? Who knows: are they even trying? 0/10, you can’t tell the April Fool from the regular story.

The Sun, The Star and The Daily Sport: see previous.

Daily Mail: Curry bombs or head implants? Take your pick! 5/10 – not a bad effort for a reactionary bigoted rag, but deduct 5 points for the jokes being about stupid foreigners. As usual. 0/10

Independent:”The Great Depression: Food stamps are a continuing reminder of widespread poverty” Wait, that’s not funny.0/10. Oh go on then, 1/10, but that’s only for the schadenfreude and the “told you so” value.

Daily Express: “Diana – It Wasn’t Murder“. A truthful report in the Express? Must be a joke. 10/10

The Times :”The Top 10 Historical Hoaxers“. Less of an April Fools’, more of a bit of topical filler. Anyway, David Aaronovitch is enough joke for any paper to be going on with. 0/10

The Telegraph: “Chinese tortoise ‘addicted to cigarettes’“. Good old Torygraph, flying the flag for good, solid, old-fashioned British April Fools’ japery. 10/10

Overall standard: Lame. Overall verdict: Must try harder – or not try at all because today’s reality is so hard to take the mickey out of.