WELL this is it. My last ever Ramblings for the Morning Star. I’ve been offered a page in the Daily Telegraph and that will be starting next Friday. True it may take a bit of adjustment to my political views but the fee is a lot better and my working colleagues much more posh.

Once you have wiped away your tears, or sent the “should have happened years ago” email to the editor, take a look at the dateline at the top of the page. Sorry comrade reader it’s just another of this year’s bunch of media April Fools.

Here in Britain and in other places across the globe April Fool’s Day has been celebrated on this day each year. Those celebrations have been going on for several centuries in many different cultures. The exact origins remain a mystery.

April Fools’ Day traditions include playing hoaxes or practical jokes on others, often yelling “April Fool!” at the end of the prank. While the exact history is shrouded in mystery, the embrace of April Fool’s Day jokes by the media and major brands has ensured the unofficial holiday’s long life.

Some believe that April Fool’s Day dates back to 1582, when France switched from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar. In the Julian Calendar, the Hindu calendar and some others they start new year with the spring equinox around April 1.
 
Those who were slow to get the news, or failed to recognise that the start of the New Year had moved to January 1, and continued to celebrate New Year during the last week of March through April 1 became the butt of jokes and hoaxes and were called “April fools.”

In France some of these “fools” would have paper fish pinned on their backs and were called “poisson d’avril” (April fish), said to symbolise a young, easily caught fish and a gullible person.

Readers as old as me may remember the legendary BBC Panorama report broadcast on April Fool’s Day 1957. The three-minute spaghetti-tree hoax was a report by the BBC current affairs programme, purportedly showing a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family “spaghetti tree,” and is still talked about.

These jokes still go on. This year one good mate of mine is trying to convince anyone who will listen he is off to Scotland in search of lake monsters. Not Loch Ness this time but another obscure Scottish loch whose monster has been discovered by Prince Charles. He is certainly not fooling me.

One of the oldest and most elaborate April Fools started in 1708 when satirist Jonathan Swift decided to play an elaborate trick on an old sparring partner, John Partridge.

Partridge was a notorious astrologer who became rich and famous selling bogus predictions to the public in almanacs. Partridge predicted in his 1708 almanac that a fever would sweep London in early April.

Swift himself published an almanac under a fake name predicting that on March 29 at 11pm, Partridge would die “of a raging fever.”

The public was intrigued, but Partridge was irate, and he published a rebuttal to Swift’s almanac calling its author a fraud. Then, on the night of March 29, Swift published an elegy (again, under a fake name) announcing that Partridge — a cobbler, starmonger and quack – had died, and had admitted on his deathbed that he was a fraud.

News of Partridge’s death spread over the next couple of days, so that when Partridge walked down the street on April 1, people stared at him in surprise and confusion.

Partridge angrily published a pamphlet saying he was alive, and Swift again publicly asserted that Partridge was dead, and claimed Partridge’s pamphlet was written by someone else. The whole escapade helped to discredit Partridge, who eventually stopped publishing his dodgy almanacs.

In January of 1749, adverts appeared in London papers announcing that in an upcoming show, a man would squeeze his entire body into a wine bottle and then sing while in the bottle.

The advertisements promised that, “during his stay in the bottle, any Person may handle it, and see plainly that it does not exceed a common Tavern Bottle.” The advertisements promised the show would feature other tricks as well, including communicating with the dead.

In fact the advertisements were part of an ongoing argument between the Duke of Portland and the Earl of Chesterfield. The duke bet that he could advertise something impossible and still “find fools enough in London to fill a playhouse and pay handsomely for the privilege of being there.”

He was right. On the night of the show, every seat in the house was filled, but no performer ever showed up. Realising they had been fooled, the audience rioted.

Sometimes the line between what is an April Fool joke and what isn’t isn’t clear-cut. If an unlikely candidate runs for public office as kind of protest prank, but ends up winning, is it still a prank? Just look at Donald Trump.

An earlier example happened in 1959. Students in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who were tired of the city’s overflowing sewers and ever-rising prices launched a campaign to elect a live rhinoceros to the city council. The rhinoceros beat 540 other candidates to win a place on the council. She got 100,000 votes — the next highest candidate only 10,000.

The rhino’s name was Cacareco (Portuguese for “rubbish”), and she was already a popular figure in Sao Paulo when the students launched her campaign. The four-year-old had moved to the city from Rio de Janeiro when Sao Paulo’s zoo opened, and was scheduled to return to Rio soon. Sadly she never took her seat.

Historians have linked April Fool’s Day to festivals such as Hilaria (Latin for joyful), which was celebrated in ancient Rome at the end of March by followers of the cult of Cybele. It involved people dressing up in disguises and mocking fellow citizens and even magistrates. It was said to be inspired by the Egyptian legend of Isis, Osiris and Seth.

It may be that April Fool’s Day was tied to the vernal equinox or first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. At this time of year nature often fools us with curious changes in the weather. It may be set to do this this week.

April Fool’s Day jokes spread throughout Britain during the 18th century. In Scotland, the tradition became a two-day event, starting with “hunting the gowk,” in which people were sent on phony errands (gowk is a word for cuckoo bird, a symbol for fool) and followed by Tailie Day, which involved pranks like pinning “kick me” signs on people’s bums.

In modern times, people have gone to great lengths to create elaborate April Fool’s Day hoaxes. Newspapers, radio and TV stations and websites have participated in the April 1 tradition of reporting outrageous fictional claims that have fooled their audiences.

For the average trickster, there is always the classic April Fool’s Day prank of covering the toilet with plastic wrap or switching sugar and salt.

Young apprentices are sent to the stores for a “long weight” or a “left-handed screwdriver.”

One other foolishness celebrated around the first of April are “Cuckoo Days” and in some places even “Cuckoo Fairs.”

One such is Marsden Cuckoo Day in West Yorkshire. This is an annual traditional festival that celebrates the arrival of spring. According to a local legend, Marsden folk used to try to prolong the cuckoo’s stay by building a wall around its nest.

Heathfield Cuckoo Fair in East Sussex is an annual tradition of releasing a cuckoo to mark the beginning of summer. A ancient tale of Heathfield Fair depicts an old woman releasing the cuckoo from her basket, whereupon he “flies up England carrying warmer days with him.”

Downton Cuckoo Fair is an annual traditional event held on the greens of the picturesque village of Downton, south of Salisbury, Wiltshire. The fair marks the “opening the gate” to let the cuckoo through.

So there it is, my last Ramblings. Or is it?