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April Fool's Day tomorrow


Yesitisdakid

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April Fools Day in the UK has been cancelled by the government as part of the Covid restrictions. 

Anyone caught attempting to carry out a prank is liable to receive a £1000 fine or 2 weeks in custody. 

However it is, possible that April Fools Day will be moved to July when National lock down ends. 

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I remember way back on the BBC, there was a programme on spaghetti being harvested from spaghetti trees. Was done very convincingly with participants in Italy, posing as peasants loading up carts of the stuff. 

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6 hours ago, Nightcrawler said:

April Fools Day in the UK has been cancelled by the government as part of the Covid restrictions. 

Anyone caught attempting to carry out a prank is liable to receive a £1000 fine or 2 weeks in custody. 

However it is, possible that April Fools Day will be moved to July when National lock down ends. 

Highly believable in these strange times

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3 hours ago, john1000 said:

I remember way back on the BBC, there was a programme on spaghetti being harvested from spaghetti trees. Was done very convincingly with participants in Italy, posing as peasants loading up carts of the stuff. 

I remember that - Richard Dimbleby on Panorama, I think.

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On 4/1/2021 at 8:49 AM, john1000 said:

I remember way back on the BBC, there was a programme on spaghetti being harvested from spaghetti trees. Was done very convincingly with participants in Italy, posing as peasants loading up carts of the stuff. 

That's a true classic, often cited as the most successful April Fools' prank ever.  The BBC reported another year that an experiment was being performed to broadcast odors to accompany TV shows.  Hundreds of people phoned in to say the experiment had been successful.

Swedish TV pulled a similar prank in 1962.  At that time, all Swedish TV broadcasts were in black and white.  An "expert" appeared on a newscast on April 1 to say stretching a fine mesh across a TV screen would "bend light" and cause colors to appear in the picture.  He recommended using a woman's stocking and tens of thousands of Swedes are believed to have done just that.

Some April 1 pranks have had far more serious consequences.  In the U.S., a small TV station broadcast on the 6.00 p.m. news that a local hill was erupting like a volcano, spewing lava and ash.  At the end of the news item, the reporter held up a card that read, "April Fool."  Nevertheless, hundreds of viewers fled the town.  The incident caused thousands of dollars in losses due to traffic accidents, lost wages and business, hotel and motel costs, police overtime, etc. A lot of people had their lives seriously disrupted. 

The producer in charge of the news broadcast and several other staffers lost their jobs. For awhile, it looked like they might face criminal charges for inciting panic.  Major lawsuits were filed against the TV station and it nearly lost its federal broadcast license.

This happened in the 1970s and since then, newspapers and TV stations have been careful to avoid pranks that can cause panic.

Evil

Edited by Evil Penevil
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1 hour ago, Evil Penevil said:

That's a true classic, often cited as the most successful April Fools' prank ever.  The BBC reported another year that an experiment was being performed to broadcast odors to accompany TV shows.  Hundreds of people phoned in to say the experiment had been successful.

Swedish TV pulled a similar prank in 1962.  At that time, all Swedish TV broadcasts were in black and white.  An "expert" appeared on a newscast on April 1 to say stretching a fine mesh across a TV screen would "bend light" and cause colors to appear in the picture.  He recommended using a woman's stocking and tens of thousands of Swedes are believed to have done just that.

Some April 1 pranks have had far more serious consequences.  In the U.S., a small TV station broadcast on the 6.00 p.m. news that a local hill was erupting like a volcano, spewing lava and ash.  At the end of the news item, the reporter held up a card that read, "April Fool."  Nevertheless, hundreds of viewers fled the town.  The incident caused thousands of dollars in losses due to traffic accidents, lost wages and business, hotel and motel costs, police overtime, etc. A lot of people had their lives seriously disrupted. 

The producer in charge of the news broadcast and several other staffers lost their jobs. For awhile, it looked like they might face criminal charges for inciting panic.  Major lawsuits were filed against the TV station and it nearly lost its federal broadcast license.

This happened in the 1970s and since then, newspapers and TV stations have been careful to avoid pranks that can cause panic.

Evil

Had to google Vicha Ratanapakdee.

Yea, i've read of a few such incidents in the States.  Thankfully over in the UK is seems, whilst not good, it's never got further than physical assaults or verbal abuse, and mostly last year. 

That said, i remember one of my wife's Thai mates saying about her 10 year old daughter getting singled out at primary school by some other kids around this time or slightly later last year, due to what the kid's must have obviously got from their parents. Horrible stuff, poor child, fingers pointed at her, kids shouting coronavirus and shit at her, telling others not to go near her, just horrible!  Little girl went home in tears, her mum was straight onto the school about it.  Thankfully i haven't heard anything like that in a long while over here.

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12 minutes ago, Krapow said:

Yea, i've read of a few such incidents in the States. 

There has been a lot more than a few such incidents in the U.S., with many Asians seriously injured and at least 20 killed.  Elderly Asians have been targeted in recent months. The family of Vicha Ratanapakdee is afraid the DA in San Francisco will allow the assailant to take a plea bargain for manslaughter or in the worst case, let him off on grounds of "mental health."  The DA is a notorious supporter of what's called "restorative justice" when Blacks are accused of crimes.

I'm veering off-topic, so I will try to start a separate topic in the Politics section  on attacks against Asians in the U.S.

Evil

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23 hours ago, forcebwithu said:

Not an April Fool's joke, but I remember reading about the panic the broadcast of War Of The Worlds caused Oct 30, 1938.

 

20 hours ago, Lantern said:

^ Yes me too. Reading about it that is.

Most of us have heard about the panic that accompanied the broadcast of The War of the Worlds in 1938.  In fact, there wasn't much panic at all. Here are links to a couple of articles that debunk this urban legend and explain how it came to be believed:

The Myth of the War of the Worlds Panic     

Did the 1938 Radio Broadcast of ‘War of the Worlds’ Cause a Nationwide Panic?

Short answer is that very few people actually tuned into the broadcast and almost all who did realized it was a work of fiction.  A few thousand people might have feared an invasion was taking place, but they called local police, radio stations and newspapers for confirmation.  Their fear didn't translate into action beyond the calls.  There was no panic in the streets, but some police department and radio station switchboards were overwhelmed by a surge of incoming calls.

Inaccurate newspaper reports created the myth there had been a panic.  At the time, newspapers saw radio broadcasts as a threat in terms of news coverage and advertising income.  Some newspapers tried to give the impression that radio wasn't a reliable source of news.  Although the CBS network and Orson Welles initially denied there had been widespread panic,  in later years they embraced the myth because it made them seem powerful.

Evil

Edited by Evil Penevil
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