Monday 31 March 2008

DOUG R. (England)

April Fool’s Day    

1 April. 

As with so many of our British traditional folklore customs,  the origins of April Fool’s Day lie deep in our Celtic history.

Celts observed four regular, natural, annual changes and identified them with moveable feast days.

 This strong Celtic (French) influence stems from their New Year date of 1 April, which was celebrated with all night parties and dancing.

 

The Celtic vernal equinox is 21 March.

This could be anytime between 25 March and 2 April, according to the St Julian calendar. The Pope Gregory calendar of 1582 changed New Years Day from April to the 1st January.

(See earlier article on Easter.)

In those days of poor and slow communication, not everyone received the message.

Traditionalists and others deliberately refused to accept the change.

Those that knew mocked those that didn’t, and sent them on ‘Fools Errands.’

The trusting victims were known as ‘April Fools.’

French practice still today is to pin a symbolic fish to the back of a victim. 

Tricking people into believing the implausible is popular.

Pranks as a way of making fun of traditionalists or the naïve has expanded.

 

Professionals have taken up the idea.

I give below many examples of how it has been used successfully in

·                modern marketing of cars and fast foods,

·                increasing newspaper circulation,

·                stimulating interest in TV programmes,

Definitions;

April Fool joke must not cause damage,

The victim of a prank must enjoy it,

There must not be any malice,

All jokes cease at midday.

 

Spin-off phrases used today include;

To play or act the Fool; behave in a silly way

Fool’s errand; a waste of time and effort

Foolhardy; rash, reckless, having no thought for consequences

Fool’s Paradise; an illusion of wellbeing

 

To be successful, an April Fool  joke must be ‘just about possible or feasible.’

In simple medieval times communities were small and close. Pranks suited the lifestyle.

You only had to persuade someone to do something silly. Everyone else could enjoy the joke.

For example;

Apprentice engineers sent to fetch a rubber hammer or a left handed screwdriver

Farm boys sent up to the house to ask for pigeon’s milk, or hen’s teeth

Apprentice painters and decorators sent to ask the stores for tartan paint

Butcher boys sent to ask for live haggis,

In 1957 a BBC Panorama programme by Richard Dimbleby  changed all this comfortable world of harmless stunts and private jokes. 

They broadcast his report on the annual spaghetti harvest in Ticino, Switzerland.

Workers were shown carefully plucking pasta from  trees and laying the strips out to dry in the sun. It was explained how a severe winter frost might ruin the flavour, how each strand grew to the same length  after many generations of careful culture. …

Eight million people saw it. Some phoned to ask how they could grow their own tree.

Official BBC response was ‘put a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.’

The world of April Fool was never the same again. 

Journalism seized the concept. Brilliant schemes appeared.

What did these stories do to circulation figures! Newspapers thrive on circulation. 

The Daily Mail ran a story about a submarine which had got lost and surfaced in Henley. This  is a town on the river Thames, many miles from the sea.

To add feasibility they explained how a freak high tide had raised the river by several feet…   

I had friends living in Henley.

I  phoned them….

Their reply was ‘have you seen the date on newspaper?’

Chris Tarrant had a Saturday morning TV programme. This was carefully structured as if it was Friday.

Apparently many set off to go to work…..

Colour TV programmes only became available in Sweden in 1970.

Imagine the impact in 1 April 1962 of a demonstration to modify a black and white TV set to give colour pictures.

All you had to do was stretch a nylon stocking over the screen.

The demonstration could have been in colour but since everybody only had black and white sets, the result could not be proved to viewers……

 

Following the journalists came the marketing people. 

They jumped on this brilliant way of exploiting a new product or getting their client widely known.

BurgerKing announced special burgers for left handed people.

They claimed 32 million left handed Americans deserved special treatment.

Some customers loudly demanded right handed ones only…..

But they still went there to buy, which was the purpose.

BMW used techniques of ‘something just plausible.’

Climate Control- This replicates any one of 23 worldwide climates within your car.

Toot & Calm- This gives off a special subliminal noise, which calms down irate drivers and avoids road rage problems.

Repel- special windscreen treatment that repels all  known insects.

SHEF- special method of controlling your home microwave cooker from your car. 

They seem to have overdone this when announcing a car without a steering wheel.

Their announcement claimed it was a necessary response to new EU laws forbidding right hand drive cars.

The company was subjected to considerable backlash. ‘Irresponsible behaviour, anti EU etc etc’ from sad people.

The pushing back of common sense boundaries has recently been used in the opposite direction.

Northampton Council announced their investigation into providing road signs in Polish!

It seemed an April Fool item until the council confirmed the report.

The resulting wave of ridicule seems to have changed their minds.

Another council announced their intention to require their residents to buy a Barbeque carbon licence at a cost of £5.

This was an April Fool , but, so near to reality…….Many people assumed it was true.

The office environment is claimed to be a good one for simple traditional tricks.

But, does the boss  agree this should be a light hearted day? 

Telling everyone ‘tomorrow is Hawaiian Shirt Day’ or ‘Pink Day’ might or might not lighten the office mood.

Some professional behaviour consultants claim this working together to create a prank brings everyone together in a shared experience.

Well its your office, your career, your boss…..

Just a final thought.

Were these true?

Japanese London Marathon runner misunderstood instructions to ‘run for 26 miles.’

He thought it was 26 Days……

Wisconsin State capitol  building was hit by a series of explosions and destroyed.

Reasons given included  ‘large quantities of gas emitted by debate in both chambers of the Senate and Assembly.’

 

Many jokes and tricks are so obvious.

They could only catch the naïve in the old days.

You wouldn’t be taken in by them today.

 Would you?    

 

DOUG R. (England)

 

Published in Woman's Magazine Russian Woman Journal  www.russianwomanjournal.com -  31 March 2008

Culture

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