April Fools Day and Happy Easter everybody

 April Fools Day and Happy Easter everybody.

Now where have we heard about today and its amusing narrative? We celebrate the day with a huge outburst of frivolity, laughter, mockery and ludicrous pranks. We try to catch out our friends and families with hilarious jokes, utter foolhardiness and harmless, inoffensive fun. We watch them squirming with embarrassment because we rightly believe that none of us should take life that seriously. In fact today is a Bank Holiday, Easter Monday so in many ways it should be a day devoted to noshing our way through boxes of chocolate Easter eggs.

But the other day of significance is April Fools Day, a day when many of us are taken by complete surprise by a news bulletin announcing quite categorically that something incredible or amazing has just taken place. So we suspend our belief convinced that it is indeed snowing quite heavily, somebody has just noticed that Father Christmas is still doing his rounds and aliens have just parked their spacecraft in your garden. But it is vitally important to look out of the windows and you'll see all of the above.

Then you're told that pizzas, curries as well as fish and chips are extremely healthy and good for you. Oh exercise is bad for you and excessive indulgence is good for you. So just keep eating and drinking to your heart's delight and your stomach will resemble an ironing board. You'll be fitter than ever before, stronger, more alert and even more energetic than you've ever felt. April Fools Day is a day of giggling at the incredulous, genuinely convincing our fellow man or woman that Stevie Wonder or Paul McCartney is ringing your doorbell and you should answer because they want you to join them on a charity record.

But hold on this is April Fools Day and we ought to be fully prepared for tomfoolery, joviality, good, old fashioned comedy and duping people into thinking that the highly unlikely or improbable has taken place. One of these days somebody will tell you that your claret and blue football team West Ham United have just won the Premier League because the rest of the teams have been penalised with colossal points deductions and your team was the only one not to break Financial Fair Play rules. If only that could be the truth.

For decades and centuries we have always observed April Fools Day with the same light hearted approach and even the naturally sceptical have just fallen for the ultimate laugh out loud moment. So you look out of the window and there are no creatures from outer space wearing bronze shell suits or strange figures with green faces and horns sticking out from their heads. You're not about to be transported to another planet and the Muppets will not be hosting a prime time chat show on the TV. But for a while we're gullible and sensitive because it can't be April Fools Day but quite clearly it is. Look at your calendar or the date on your phone. We think you'll find it is and April Fool it most certainly is.

In 1957, BBC's Panorama, a current affairs programme and investigative journalism at its finest, proudly reminded its viewers that in a small corner of Italy the daily produce of spaghetti growing on trees was flourishing and showing every sign of prosperity. The programme showed people quite enthusiastically picking long strings of spaghetti from tree branches without any hint of self consciousness. It was only after that night's edition of Panorama that the penny dropped and there was a stark realisation that the BBC had just been pulling our leg and what an April Fools Day that had been.

So we'll settle down with our Easter eggs, lunchtime lamb and bunny rabbit costumes and then engage in a jolly spirit of banter and rib tickling bonhomie. It's the first Bank Holiday of the year so a vast majority of men will be required to the odd jobs at home that could never be completed because they were too busy at work or tending to their children. April Fools Day normally takes us unawares because most of us are too busy doing a hundred other activities that take precedence to this day.

Maybe we haven't got time to find out whether herds of elephant have just been spotted in our local park or leopards are prowling through the undergrowth of our recreation areas. Then the kids, at their most impressionable, are told with some conviction that peas and baked beans are falling out of spring skies. Mum and dad, with straight faces, sit down with their offspring and explain that this has always been the case so they're not to argue. So the children giggle and chuckle and plead with their parents not to be so silly.

But dad will probably still start rummaging around the garden shed for the lawn mower or perhaps he'll turn his thoughts to some leisurely DIY. It's time then to dig out the stepladder, the pots of paint which have been gathering dust since at least last Easter and decorate the living room in a lighter shade of magnolia or stick up some ornate, floral wallpaper onto the wall. If you're lucky kids, once he's fixed the shelves and put up some more family photos, he might just buy you a huge Easter egg with small packets of Rolo chocolates. The likelihood is he could reward you for your sterling endeavours at school.

And then, once he's taken you and mum out on the yearly Easter egg hunt and then stashed away the hammers, drills, paintbrushes, saws and nails, he'll fall into his comfortable arm chair and then drop off to sleep until Easter is over for another year and he can just relax. Chance will be a fine thing. We normally rest on this day of days hoping that at some point that the domestic duties will have been completed to everybody's satisfaction.

So it's April Fools Day folks. It may be advisable to avoid Panorama on the BBC since you never know what they've got up their sleeve. Or you could tell the children that Santa is on his way from Lapland. Or that the milkman has just delivered a huge tin of biscuits. Perhaps your loving parents will tell their offspring that there was a full moon at midday. But Happy Easter everybody and be sure to watch the famous Easter Parade film with Judy Garland. It's fabulously appropriate and topical.