pranks-april-fools-day

There seems to be a few ideas on WWW as to the Origins of April Fools Day, and whilst many sites have content that agrees with each other, no-one it seems is able to really pin point the exact origins. So it is hard to lay the blame or origin of the day on anyone individual. Maybe that is because the whole idea of pranking or playing jokes on people is a world wide phenomenon that spontaneously grew in many cultures and just needed an excuse to find an official day to celebrate. Cultures far and wide have a history of joke playing, from European countries, Africa, Arabia and Australia we all seem to have a preoccupation for making fools of ourselves and others.

In Australia and New Zealand you only get until 12 midday to play your prank, if you do it after that time you become the fool. However countries such as America get to prank all day (lucky them).

Wikipedia has this to say about the origins of April Fools Day.

"Precursors of April Fools' Day include the Roman festival of Hilaria, held March 25,[2] and the Medieval Festival of Fools, held December 28,[3] still a day on which pranks are played in Spanish-speaking countries.

In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1392), the "Nun's Priest's Tale" is set Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two.[4] Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon.[5] Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after March, i.e. May 2,[6] the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381. Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean "March 32", i.e. April 1.[7] In Chaucer's tale, the vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox.

In 1508 French poet Eloy d'Amerval referred to a poisson d'avril (April fool, literally "April fish"), a possible reference to the holiday.[8] In 1539, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene wrote of a nobleman who sent his servants on foolish errands on April 1.[6] In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the holiday as "Fooles holy day", the first British reference.[6] On April 1, 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to "see the Lions washed".[6]

In the Middle Ages, New Year's Day was celebrated on March 25 in most European towns.[9] In some areas of France, New Year's was a week-long holiday ending on April 1.[2][3] Many writers suggest that April Fools originated because those who celebrated on the January 1 made fun of those who celebrated on other dates.[2] The use of the January 1 as New Year's Day was common in France by the mid-16th century,[6] and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon."

It is interesting to note that in the Northern Hemisphere where the whole tradition started that April Fools day coincides with the advent or arrival of spring. There are many spring festivals throughout history and maybe the excitement of the season was expressed sometimes in the humorous pastime of fooling someone.

However it came to pass I do know that Aussies (Australians) love a good joke, and they love to share and even boast about the tricks they have played on people. On this blog I will share some of these jokes. I hope you enjoy them. Also I would love to hear about April fools day jokes from your part of the world so please leave comments.

Whilst any and every day is a good day for a joke or trick or two, April Fools day is the time to really get creative. It is almost as if there is a competition running in our country to be the most ingenious

Over the years I have not only heard of some good tricks I have been able to create some of them myself. The art of a successful April Fools day joke is to make it funny without being hurtful and all practical jokes must be safe. If you hurt someone you become the fool. Most people appreciated a good joke even if it is played on them, however be aware that not everyone has a sense of humour. So pick your victim wisely.

One practical joke from my days as working as a Laboratory manager at Saltram Wines was played on the head wine maker for Wolf Blass Wines. Mr Johnny Glaetzer. It was at the end of a very successful vintage in the Barossa Valley and we had a whole lot of red grapes fermenting in the open fermenters. Every day the winemakers would gather in my laboratory to taste the ferments to make sure things were going ok. Now winemakers love good fruit characters in their grapes and I happened to find some lovely berry essence in the back of a cupboard in my office. I carefully added a drop of this essence to 2 samples of the Wolf Blass ferments. I also found some capsaicin essence which I added to a couple of samples of our own Saltram ferments for our wine maker David.

The winemakers came in and started tasting, you should have seen their face when they tried the ferments with the capsaicin samples ohh yuck and there were some concerned faces that things were not going well with that batch. Then they tried the other ones with the delightful berry essence. Oh how Johnny got excited, never before had he had grapes of this quality. These characters he said would make this an outstanding vintage. But oh what to do with the other batch? I couldn't hold it in any longer and I confessed. We all had a great laugh and it had nothing to do with the alcohol lol.

One problem with playing jokes on April Fools Day is that people are on the lookout for the to happen and this often ruins the element of surprise needed to pull off the most successful pranks. This can necessitate some months of prior planning to get elements in place for the most successful and original pranks.

For example if you are going to trick someone into thinking they have been drafted into the Army or called up for special service perhaps Jury Duty or something similar you need to get that letter in the mail a few days ahead of April Fools Day, you might also need to get that letter posted from another town so prior preparation is the Key.

Many jokes and pranks over the years have used food as their focus. You would think that because food is used so often that people would be suspicious but this is not the case and you can catch your family out time and time again. Just remember though that people will usually put some of the prank food in their mouth so hygiene please.
Jokes you can do with Gelatine

Other food jokes that I have used whilst cooking in the Army often contain gelatine. i have filled boots with Jelly late at night, also the odd toilet bowl. Then there was the time I jellied Troutie's jocks. Yep set his jocks in a bowl of jelly. You can also have fun making mash potato mounds, freezing them and then serving up the frozen mash with a nice hot meal. Finally there is the mysterious cut banana trick.

Mystery Cut Banana Joke.

You get a banana with the skin on and carefully put a needle into the banana and move horizontally across the inside of the banana making a cut line. Repeat this several times and then put the banana back in the bowl. When the person skins the banana they get a ready sliced piece of fruit.

Fake Lollies

I have also cut up some unscented Army soap making it the same size as Minties and then wrapping it in the lolly wrapper. Placed in the bowl with other lollies it is sure to catch someone.

Food colouring uses.

Get some clean cotton rags and soak in food colouring over night. Let dry. Roll up the cotton into a wad and tie with cotton. Remove the shower head and place the died cotton into the shower head and replace the head. Next person to take a shower will be a pretty shade of blue or yellow or pink.

The icing on the cake.

Get an empty biscuit tim. Ice it with royal icing just as if it were a real cake. Watch them try to cut it.

Or you can get two plain sponge cakes stick together (one on top of the other) using some jam to help them to stick. Now cut a round hole into the centre making sure to leave a good inch circumference to give the cake stability. Next blow up a balloon to the same size as the hole you have cut. Cover the top of the cake with a nice layer of whipped cream and present. Watch when they cut this one.

Sugar for my honey. A nice easy trick is to put salt in the sugar bowl.