I kid you not

April Fool. April Bloody Fool.
Did you know that the Panorama spoof about spaghetti trees was broadcast in 1957? There's a reason why this is such a famous April Fool. It is because there has hardly been a funny one since.
Not that there weren't enough people trying.
Jeez, is there anything less funny than the annual collection of 'jokes' played by newspapers, PRs and advertisers for one day every year.
 For a start, who are they fooling? For another, it just doesn't work. Let's take newspapers first. On the tube a long line of solemn faces glanced at the story about edible editions of Metro being produced and simply turned the page to read about Britain rolling out the red carpet for a Libyan mass murderer.
 The Sun had the side-splitting tale about gorillas with iPads so it could use some lame pun about 'ape' and 'apps.' The Mirror had some crap about the government taxing fresh air and even had the gall to print, the next day, one of those 'Were you fooled by our brilliant April Fool?' type pieces.
 I'm sure someone, somewhere, was fooled but it's probably someone who reads while moving their lips and whose dad is also their uncle. There were others too tedious to mention but I guess most were designed to finally give the young, trendy, long-haired goons on art desks something to do.
 Even the Independent did one about Portugal selling Ronaldo to Spain to clear their debt.
 Then came the PRs who sent out their hilarious and wacky releases to prove that they really are very funny people, honest guv. Holiday companies offering yeti safaris for instance and another about the latest Ryanair surcharge. Though as Ryanair send out releases all year round about standing on planes and charging for toilets and the like, all their releases are treated as April Fools no matter when they get sent.
 Again, there were others about royal weddings and the like that were so crap I've already forgotten them.
 And then advertisers. Now this is the most perplexing. Advertisers spend their whole lives trying to come up with inventive, innovatve and often funny ways of engaging with the public. So why does all this go out the window when they do an April Fool. There were a couple I remember seeing and thinking 'you wallies.' BMW tried one about a new model for the royal wedding called the WILL. No wonder people think Germans don't have a sense of humour. And French Connection did something about couture for cats which was not funny or clever. And they're not even French, so you can't blame a childhood of watching Jacques Tati films for that.
 Perhaps the only one which may have come close, because it was from an unlikely source, was New Scientist whose website did a story about how masturbation can cure restless leg syndrome. At least I think it was a spoof. My legs are awfully still.
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The tradition is that no practical jokes can be played after midday so when the news came in later that day to say that the Daily and Sunday Sport stopped trading, then it was clearly not a joke despite the comments about going 'tits up' of course.
I have documented on previous blogs my various dealings with David Sullivan, the man with the fashion sense of a Butlin's redcoat and with a penchant for 'men be taller' shoes.
First and foremost, it is never a good day from a professional point of view when journalists get made redundant. It's hard enough to find work out there in a shrinking market in which news suppliers want to pay less now than they did 15 years ago.
I know that doesn't just apply to this industry but it's the one I work in.
A lot of journalists who have worked for the Sport - most I suspect - try and use it as a stepping stone or launch pad into national tabloid journalism. I did. And it worked. There are now a number of high ranking executives, specialist writers and national newspaper reporters, subs and editors who passed through the Sport's offices.
The Sport will not be missed in many quarters. Most people don't like it but don't read it, unless they buy it to disguise their copy of the Daily Mail of course.
Behind the nudge nudge element of its pictures and headlines, there is something darker, too.
There is a certain amount of distasteful coverage of sexual assaults and rape trials which are presented as titillation while the very specialised kind of personal service featured in the small ads surely finances sex slave trafficking and more besides.
I worked there when it was just The Sunday Sport, almost 24 years ago. I wasn't much cop doing the stories they expected. But I did a good job making up the letters page.
It is the only place I have ever been sacked from - although I came close a few times elsewhere, which suggests they may not have been entirely in the wrong to do so!
But I bear no grudges and I hope the hacks left without a job go on to find work elsewhere.
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I have mentioned a few times how Epping Forest, which I live near, is famous for dead bodies. I was half joking but then a couple of days ago in a lake behind the clubhouse where my son plays cricket for Buckhurt Hill under-12s, a man's severed arm was found. Literally, though! Shut up?
The rest of him wasn't which means there is either someone walking around with a missing arm or other bits will crop up elsewhere. Probably to be found by a dog walker. They always are.
I'm not sure how they could tell it was a man's arm but being Essex I'm guessing that if it was female it would have been orange, the nail extensions would have been immaculate and there would have been a tattoo of some meaningless Chinese proverb on the insider of the wrist.
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I think I'm going to vote against AV. Which means that I'm doing something I thought I'd never do and that is siding with the Tories. It's not just that I want to stop more LibDems getting in (which I do, the treacherous bastards) or minority nationalists and the like.
But not enough people in this country vote when the system is really simple so why on earth are they going to vote when it's ten times more complicated.
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So is it Moussa Koussa or Musa Kusa. The BBC, the papers and various other sources can't seem to agree. But he can take his place alongside Sirhan Sirhan, Boutros Boutros Thingy and others as having those funny foreign names that make us all laugh. I say laugh but as more details emerge about the atrocities he has, no doubt, been involved in, then perhaps that isn't quite the right emotional response.
But it's the crazy name, psychotic guy link.
Not that we're much better. I can remember a boy at school, in the year above us, whose name was Steven Stevens. And rumour has it his middle name was Steven too. And then there was Gary Gurry who I'm sure some of my old Ilford schoolmates can vouch for. Not that they were psychotic of course!
The barman at my old work boozer, the Mutant Arms, thought for years that my real name was Solly Solomons, so I'm not one to talk. Of course my real first name is Solomon.
Cheers...Solomon Solly Solomons