It’s that jolly japes day when you can never be quite sure if what you’ve seen or heard is actually true.
April Fools’ Day was the date you’d love with a passion as a child because it meant you could play tricks on your parents or siblings with impunity, at least until noon.
After midday, the joke would be on you.
Over the years, there have been some classic and cracking April Fools Day jokes, such as the Panorama spaghetti harvest of 1957 and the San Serriffe fictional island nation invented in 1977 by The Guardian newspaper.
Done well, April Fools’ Day jokes were superb, pulling in the gullible with no harm done because the jokes weren’t mean.
This was back in the day when we took what we now call ‘fake news’ in good spirit, especially when it was funny.
We could all do with a laugh in dark times but, these days, ‘fake news’ is everywhere. It’s made cynics of us all. And it’s mean spirited.
‘Fake news’ has also become a popular retort when someone who should know better wants to shut down a valid story.
When an April Fools’ joke is done on social media, it invariably backfires and leads to a string of puzzled, worried, baffled comments by people who’ve forgotten what day it is.
Is it an age thing or are April Fools’ jokes wearing a bit thin?
Maddie Grigg 