Don't touch our Jacarandas - April Fool's Pranks

Have I gotten lost in translation/ out of touch/ or stuck in my little bubble, because I am pretty darn sure there were more April Fool's pranks back in the days before Google and social media became big?

When still office-bound, my head would be so full of stuff, that I'd more often than not be caught out by a startling or preposterous headline on the early morning drive to work. My best work buddy and I often arrived early to miss some of the peak traffic and would catch up with the latest news in the morning newspaper while having our freshly brewed cup of coffee and a rusk.

To explain - I'm a night owl, definitely not a morning person, so would easily be caught out with April Fool's jokes. My friend, on the other hand, was at her best early mornings, and would not say a word about it being the first day of April.

I would sometimes be indignant, like:
How could our government even contemplate changing the name of our country to the Republic of Gupta!

At other times, there would be alarming news, like a mini Tsunami or massive Tidal wave that hit Durban beaches during the night!

Some of the commercial companies and restaurant chains also got in on the act. The funniest and most recent one I remember was when one of our big supermarket chains claimed to have created taste technology for their App so that people could smell a new flavour of Hot Cross Bun over their phone on the App. It seemed that many were caught out by that one, but it was way too far-fetched for me!

Changing the subject, that reminds me a bit of myself when looking at some of those small old family photos.
I kid you not, when deep in thought, and after searching for a particular photo for hours, I find myself using my fingers to zoom into the photo, crazy, right?
Or have you done that as well?
Well, at least I can laugh at myself in moments like that!

Our administrative capital city Pretoria is known for its avenues of Jacaranda trees which are covered in purple flowers in summertime. The city is fondly known as the Jacaranda city. There also is a popular Radio station Jacaranda FM that broadcasts from Johannesburg. So, the people of Gauteng, and South Africa, love the Jacaranda trees. We had a couple of trees growing on our school property, and when the Jacarandas were flowering, we knew it was time for the year-end exams.

There was much consternation when one of our country's best investigative journalistic TV programs, Carte Blanche, announced that the City fathers decided to remove all Jacaranda trees on public property in Pretoria.

Thankfully, they reminded us at the end of the program that it was 1 April, and the Jacaranda insert was just their prank!

We lefties are always the butt of jokes, whether it's April Fool's Day or not, and those in the food industry often use us for their pranks!

Left-handed anything would appeal to me as a leftie who always uses her 'wrong' hand, according to those who use their 'right' hand.

However, I still cannot fathom out how anyone would fall for adverts for a left-handed sandwich or a burger, but it seems they're so believable, that people still fall for them!

I was curious about the origins of April Fool's Day, and found many theories.

Some historians speculate that it goes right back to the 16th century, when France switced from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. The new year no longer started on 1 April, but many people did not accept that the new year had moved to 1 January, and continued celebrating the new year on 1 April, but they became the butt of jokes and were called April Fools.

There are many other theories, one is that it originated during ancient Roman times.

It however did spread to Britain in the 18th century.

In Scotland it became a two-day event, something our Silver Scot @tengolotodo would know about, but, he's been busy trying to catch us out with Bumper Spaghetti Crops...
AND
...shoe trees as well! They can't give off a pleasant fragrance Ed?
Hopefully, they're not planted too close to the Spaghetti trees;)

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