Fool's gold

EVER since Neanderthal man first chapped on his neighbour's cave and ran away, human beings have enjoyed playing tricks on one another. There was Thomas Betson, the 15th-century monk, who hid a beetle in a hollowed out apple in an attempt to convince his fellow friars it was possessed, the popular Sixties show Candid Camera and today's online japesters with their spoofs and rickrolls. The need to get one over on our nearest and dearest seems to be embedded in our psyches.

Dating back to 536BC, but still celebrated today, the Persian festival of Sizdah Bedar on the 13th day of their New Year (which falls on 1 or 2 April) involves the telling of white lies or the playing of tricks. And jesters and fools played a key role in aristocratic households throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, where they were paid not only to entertain, but to criticise their masters. One of the most famous, Henry VIII's Patch, was a present from Cardinal Wolsey.

No-one knows exactly how the modern tradition of April Fools' Day came into being. Some believe it relates to the introduction of a new calendar in the 16th century with the "fools" being those who continued to adhere to the Julian calendar and celebrate the New Year at the end of March/beginning of April.

In France – the first country to adopt the new calendar (now known as the Gregorian calendar) – 1 April is called Poisson D'Avril and involves children sticking pictures of fish on each other's backs.

But others insist April Fools' Day relates to shenanigans in the town of Gotham in Nottinghamshire in the 13th century, where the residents pretended to be lunatics to prevent King John entering and claiming the road as public property (as he did with every road he set foot on).

Whatever the origins of the festival, there can be few among us who have not suffered the ignominy of being sent out for tartan paint, a long stand or a bubble for a spirit level.

But the best April Fools' pranks require chutzpah, imagination and a great deal of planning. Here are some of the best.

1 THE PROTOTYPE

Setting the standard for April Fools, Panorama's spoof documentary in 1957 showed a family from Ticino in Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from trees before laying it out strand by strand to dry in the sun. As Richard Dimbleby explained how frost could imperil the crops, hundreds phoned the BBC to ask where they could buy a plant for their own garden. To which the BBC replied sardonically: "Place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best."

In these days of international cuisine, it is difficult to understand how anyone could fall for such a ruse. But, back then, TV was a novelty, pasta was an exotic foreign food and the word of a Dimbleby was not to be questioned. Hence a generation grew up half-expecting to see the Italian staple dangling from the foliage.

2 THE MOST ERUDITE

The Guardian – a newspaper long famed for its typographical errors – created a seven-page supplement celebrating the 10th anniversary of the archipelago San Serriffe, in the Indian Ocean with its two main islands Upper and Lower Caisse.

The "article" examined the nation's history, geography and culture in detail, with almost every town a pun relating to printing terminology. So popular was this April Fools' Day prank that on 1 April last year, San Serriffe was the subject of much of the newspaper's cryptic crossword.

3 THE BEST POLITICAL

In 1992, National Public Radio's Talk Of The Nation programme announced Richard Nixon, above right, was running for the presidency again, boosting the credibility of the claim with audio clips of his "candidacy speech", delivered by comedian Rich Little.

Angry listeners jammed the phone lines when they heard Nixon's campaign slogan was: "I didn't do anything wrong and I won't do it again." Ironically, this was the election that saw Bill Clinton enter the White House. A cynic might say it could have been written for him.

4 THE GEEKIEST

Imagine the consternation in mathematical circles when in 1998 the journal of the New Mexicans For Science And Reason reported that Alabama state legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi from 3.14159 to 3.0.

The feature was written by physicist Mark Boslough to satirise New Mexico's legislature for trying to force schools to teach creationism.

5 THE WACKIEST

Eccentric astronomer and TV presenter Patrick Moore told Radio 2 listeners that an unprecedented planetary alignment at 9.47am on 1 April, 1976, would reduce gravity on Earth and that anyone who jumped up and down at that time would experience a strange floating sensation.

In what was, perhaps, a precursor to yogic flying, lots of gullible people joined in the jumping and convinced themselves they did indeed feel weightless.

6 THE WORST TIMED

In 1989, prankster extra- ordinaire Richard Branson set out to fool the British public with a hot air balloon designed to look like a glowing flying saucer. Sure enough, when the alien craft landed in a Surrey field, frightened citizens and the police gazed open-mouthed as a door popped open and a small, silver-suited figure emerged. Unfortunately, the wind had blown the balloon off-course and forced it to land a day early – on 31 March – begging the question as to who was the real fool.

7 THE MOST SUCCESSFUL LONE PRANK

Renowned local japester Porky Bickar caused widespread alarm in 1974 when he dumped a load of burning tyres in the crater of the extinct volcano Mount Edgecumbe on Kruzof Island off the coast of Alaska and everyone thought it was about to erupt.

He had told the police and air traffic control, but had forgotten to inform the coastguard, which sent out a chopper and a whale boat to investigate the phenomenon. Only after the authorities in the state capital Juneau had been informed of the "crisis" did the pilot of the chopper radio back that all he could see was a pile of burning tyres, and a giant April Fool message spray-painted on the snow. So notorious did the prank become that when Mount St Helens erupted six years later, Bickar received a letter saying: "You've gone too far this time."

8 THE EARLIEST

In 1860, a large number of people throughout London received an invitation to an event at the Tower of London which read: "Admit Bearer and Friend to view the annual ceremony of Washing the White Lions on Sunday, 1 April. Admittance only at the White Gate. It is particularly requested that no gratuities be given to the wardens or attendants." By midday, crowds had gathered but, of course, the ceremony didn't exist. Apparently this trick was played, with various degrees of success, throughout the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, the earliest historical reference to it being found in the 1698 edition of Dawks's News-Letter, which reported that "Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed."

9 THE MOST/LEAST AROMATIC

Some viewers got down on their hands and knees to sniff the screen in 1965 when the BBC aired an interview with a man who had invented Smell-o-Vision – a technology which, it was claimed, allowed odours such as coffee and onions to be transmitted into their own homes.

10 THE BEST HIT RATE

If you want your April Fool to dupe the maximum number of suckers, the key is simple: exploit their desperation. Ten thousand people engaged in the battle of the bulge phoned Yorkshire Water in 2004 after GMTV reported the company had been trialling a new "diet tap water" that had already helped one customer lose a stone and a half in four months. The trial had proved so successful, it was claimed, a third tap supplying the elixir of slimness, would be added to kitchen sinks. So much less challenging than cutting down on cakes.

11 BEST ONLINE

Two years ago, Google told its customers they'd never again miss a deadline thanks to its new "Custom Time" feature.

The fictitious service allowed people to send their e-mails through a hole in the space/time continuum by selecting either the "one hour" ago or "six hours ago" option. The Custom Time feature "utilises an e-flux capacitor to resolve issues of causality," Google wrote.

12 BEST/WORST BY A DICTATOR

Saddam Hussein's family certainly knew how to get them rolling in the aisles. In 1998, the newspaper Babil, owned by his son, Uday, below, announced the US was lifting sanctions against Iraq, only to reveal the following day, the report had been an April Fools' joke. Ha Ha. The next year Uday himself announced monthly food rations were to be supplemented with bananas, chocolate and Pepsi. It was the way he told them.

13 THE MOST MISCONCEIVED

In 2004, senior co-workers at City Hall in London, Ontario, contacted the general manager of community services Glenn Howlett on holiday to say the deadline for a big report he had been working on had been moved forward. Fearful of losing his job, he cut the holiday short and headed home.

Working frantically to complete the task on time, he suffered heart palpitations and collapsed. As a result he handed in his notice after 30 years of service. When he discovered he had been the victim of a prank, he sued for damages.

14 THE MOST TWISTED

The same year, 33-year-old Randy Wood phoned his ex-wife and asked her to meet him at his home in West Monroe, New York, where she found him hanging from a tree in the front yard. He wasn't really dead, he had merely pulled a stunt, using a harness. Strangely, neither she nor the police found it particularly amusing. He was fined 1,000 and jailed for a year.

15 THE APRIL FOOL THAT WASN'T

When – on 31 March, 1946 – residents in Alaska and Hawaii were told a tsunami was expected to hit their shores the following day, they smiled knowingly and got on with their business. The trouble was the announcement was not an April Fools' joke, but a genuine warning. Sure enough, the next day an earthquake tsunami hit the Aleutian Islands and Hilo in Hawaii, claiming a total of 165 lives.