Ha, Bloody, Ha

Well, how many of those hilarious April Fool's Day japes did you fall for this year? The media are usually full of tales of trees growing spaghetti, Yeti being captured, Heathrow's Terminal Five running smoothly and the like. The trouble is that they're all so contrived and tiresome. The fact that there's no build up to them which makes them so obvious. Now, someone who clearly knows how to perpetrate a really great April Fool's gag is Robert Mugabe. He's kept up this free election nonsense going for months now. He's had everyone damn near convinced that he might actually allow free elections and abide by their result. The comic master stroke was actually letting them take place, without too much obvious rigging - that really had everyone going. Then he effectively shouts "April Fools" and doesn't release the results! Most amusing! Actually, I don't know what people are complaining about. Mugabe only promised free elections - he never said anything about their outcome having any effect. Everyone got to vote - what more do they bloody want?

Another elaborate April Fool's gag I really liked was that one where those people in Kent came home from holiday to find that an aircraft had crashed into their house. The great thing about it was that, right up until they actually arrive back home, they thought it was a wind up - then they come round the corner and find that their house really has been demolished! To digress slightly, one eyewitness to the crash said that as the aircraft started descending, the pilot signalled from the cockpit that he was 'going down'. Now, whilst, in a way, I admire any man who, in the face of probable death, can take the time to boast about his sexual prowess, i can't help but feel that if he'd spent less time performing a sex act and more time concentrating on the controls, then maybe the plane wouldn't have crashed...