April Fool’s Day is no laughing matter

There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure... but it is never safe to make an assumption about how the different generations feel about anything from vegans to scented candles. This week, our columnist duo turn their attention to practical jokes.

‘If you have a baby in the home, smear a diaper with chocolate candy or peanut butter; then call in a spouse or child to observe with horror as you taste the mess.’

I like the stipulation ‘If you have a baby in the home’, but otherwise I am not sure this idea from the American version of Good Housekeeping qualifies as an April Fool trick. An April Fool is not just a practical joke.

The same applies to the magazine’s suggestion for a workplace prank: ‘Beat your office mate to their desk and flip the display of their computer screen fully upside down. This might sound complicated, but it can actually be accomplished with a few simple keystrokes in system preferences.’

I don’t know how it could be accomplished at all, unless the saboteur had purloined my password. If successful, it would drive me into a red mist of rage, but so might smearing my screen with peanut butter, or a soiled diaper.

An April Fool joke must tempt the unwary into behaving foolishly. At the North Western Electricity Board, where I worked in 1973, a favourite was to leave a message for a colleague to phone ‘Mr C Lyon’. The number would be that of Belle Vue Zoo. Ho, ho.

A successful lie is not enough. Two years ago, a woman in Kansas rang her daughter on 1 April and told her she’d been shot.

The next thing the mother knew was armed police breaking down the door. Who’s the Fool in that?

When, in 1957, Panorama broadcast an item on the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland’s Ticino region, it relied on audience ignorance. Some had never known where spaghetti came from.

But nowadays most BBC reports could be April Fool jokes. One, I see, is about a shortage of crispy rolls in Scotland, traditionally eaten with a filling of square sausage.

Ask for square sausage in the Home Counties and all you’d get is a funny look. And here’s a photo on the BBC News website captioned ‘People in London march against octopus farming’. A likely story.

If April Fools are becoming plausible lies, you might as well revert to pinning a sign on someone’s back reading: ‘Kick me’.

I haven’t checked what theme we’re meant to be writing to this week, so it seems as good a time as any to reveal that Christopher and I are (fraternal) twins. I know, I know, it’s confusing. A real DeVito/Schwarzenegger situation.

I understand you may have some questions. Our bylines? Chris, as only I call him, thought it would be best to take different ones in case there was ever an end to media nepotism and family ties started counting against people. Luckily that will never happen. Our real surname is Worrall Thompson.

Our different appearances?

I bathed for 30 years in milk; he bathed for 30 years in Soho. He embraced the full Uncle Albert look early; I was the first Briton to undergo facial hair lasering when, in 1971, I required a smooth face to take the role of Olivia in a critically tolerated but commercially bereft production of Twelfth Night at the Winter Gardens in Margate.

I remember our mother’s words: ‘Boys, whatever you do, always make sure you do it together.’ It’s a remark that explains several pantomime horses Chris and I have piloted, but also this very page.

‘Oh all right, you can both do it,’ the editor said, having initially asked for Chris to be paired with the Gen Z musician Yungblud. ‘But one of you has to pretend to be a millennial and know who Kylie Jenner is.’ I was the obvious candidate. A 40-minute Google later and we were away…

Nope. Can’t keep it up. Sorry. See, that’s the thing about April Fool’s jokes, you need total commitment. It’s why it’s frustrating that it lasts just half a day.

Recently I saw a pub advertise ‘St Patrick’s Month’. Now, if we did April Fool’s Month, we could really get things going. Instead of BMW advertising airbags made from Angel Delight they could actually make them, and install them in some 3 Series estates for a laugh.

Instead of short joke items written by ‘Flora Plio’, newspapers could have full, front-page fake investigations that last for weeks and proclaim most of the cast of The Archers as international drug traffickers.

Alas, no commitment. Just like my supporting cast in Twelfth Night.