April fools' in the style of British humor

In the 1800s, dedicated jokesters printed official-looking tickets for the fake lion-washing and handed them out all over London.

Even the Germans get in on the April Fools’ action — a Berlin newspaper once published their fictional rendering of proposed new city buses.

• 1957: BBC’s Panorama celebrates Swiss farmers’ record spaghetti crop — chalking it up to a mild winter and the eradication of spaghetti weevils — with film of fake farmers harvesting spaghetti from trees. (In response to the many people who asked how to grow spaghetti trees, the BBC helpfully advises, “[P]lace a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best.”)
• 1972: The UK Veterinary Record publishes a study detailing the many diseases of Brunus edwardii, AKA the teddy bear. Said the article, “Pet ownership surveys have shown that 63.8 percent of households are inhabited by one or more of these animals, and there is a statistically significant relationship between their population and the number of children in a household. The public health implications are obvious.”
• 1980: The British Army’s Soldier magazine publishes an article explaining that the fur on the hats worn by Buckingham Palace’s Royal Guards actually continues growing and requires trims, complete with a fake photo and scientific-sounding faux-splanation. Editors at the London Daily Express are among those who believe the article, republishing it for their own readers.
• 1991: The London Times reports that the M25 highway will become one-way: to relieve congestion, traffic will go clockwise on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and counter-clockwise Tuesdays and Thursdays. The BBC — who you’d think would know better, given their own love of April Fools’ Day — falls for it, airing interviews with angry locals.

via {daily post}