April Fool's jokes in Belgium are rarely very daring or noteworthy -- can you remember a striking example from one of the past years? I know I can't -- perhaps the RTBF should have kept its "Flanders independent" spoof for 1 April!Not so in the UK, however, where one April Fool's joke in particular lives on in the collective memory of many: fifty years ago now, the BBC's serious Panorama programme featured a report read by the no less serious journalist Richard Dimbleby about spaghetti harvesting in Switzerland, and how the early spring left the crop (growing from spaghetti trees) vulnerable to frost. That such absurdity should have been believable back in 1957 is not just due to the high status of the Panorama programme and its journalists, but also to the exotic status that spaghetti still had at the time, and of course in no small measure to mankind's inborn talent for gullibility as well.
From the BBC News article commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the spaghetti tree hoax, you can access the original video report and read more about the recipe for a perfect April Fool's joke. BBC's On This Day history website also has a feature devoted to the spaghetti tree story and links through to a short history of April Fool's day. If this still doesn't satisfy your hunger for April foolishness, you can read up on this year's April Fool's jokes in the UK press, or browse through an archive of April Fool's tricks on the net.
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