I don’t actually remember the classic BBC Panorama “April Fool” prank where Richard Dimbleby reported on the Italian spaghetti harvest. I have of course see footage of it. I do recallBBC Nationwides Luke reply reporting on the Oirish builders who had built a house upside down….lights onthe floor rather than the ceiling….because they had the plans upside down. That was a classic, not least because of the gullibility of the English viewers who were rather too eager to believe in Oirish stupidity in the 1970s.

Thats the trouble with April Fools Day. Every media outlhas feels obliged to do a “spaghetti harvest” type prank. I have not seen any of today’s newspapsome or TV news ….but I bet some serious thought has gone into producing a classic. The problem in 2013 is that so much news seems like a parody.

Hard therefore for a blogger to keep up with pranks. Any unlikely story should be checked against the dateline. Is there really an Ulster-England Agency as announced on Ian Parsley (politician, business man and linguist) blog? I have no idea but it cannot be any more absurd than the Ulster-Scots Agency. Actually I was hoping that Mr Parsleys blog would tell us that he had joined yet another political party (we would have fallen for that) or that he or someone he knows well will be the next Alliance candidate in East Antrim…..now that would be hilarious. LikEurope European Union or Barak Obama getting the Nobel Peace Prize. Oh wait…those things were real.

I dunno. Is Rathlin Wine (Slugger O’Toole today) for real? What can Slugger do to prank us….a Belfast Telegraph Life and Times Survey perhaps? No Slugger only fool themselves with that one.