Britain’s royal wedding is off! Oh no it’s not, it’s an April Fools’ Day joke.
The big royal occasion later this month was the top target for traditional April 1 pranks in the press on Friday, including bride-to-be Kate Middleton shopping for baby clothes and the left-leaning Guardian joining the pro-monarchy bandwagon.
Beyond the royal nuptials, British tycoon Richard Branson has snapped up Pluto in a bid to reinstate it as a planet while his Virgin Atlantic airline will encourage first class travelers to grow their own vegetables on long-haul flights.
And the Daily Telegraph reported a “secret memo” about Labour Party plans to hold royal wedding-style street parties to mark the upcoming marriage of its leader Ed Miliband on May 27.
In terms of journalistic resources, few put in as much effort as the Guardian, traditionally a bastion of royal-bashing republicanism.
“In something of an about turn, the Guardian today pledges its ‘full throated support’ for the monarchy,” it said in its online edition, which features a comprehensive live blog poking fun at rival newspapers and broadcasters.
It includes a photograph of Prince William’s best man and brother Prince Harry holding “what appears to be a draft of his best man’s speech” which refers to an incident involving a goat and royal pal, Guy Pelly, at the exclusive Bouji’s nightclub.
A Breaking News headline at 10:11am declared the royal wedding was off, but four minutes later a “Correction” informed readers that it was on.
Most readers were in on the joke, but those in two minds might refer to the blog heading in Latin: “Sis tranquillus est iocum.” Fret not, it’s a joke.
The Daily Mail has a Middleton look-a-like studying infants’ clothes a month before she gets married. The photographer was “Will Sandkate.”
On a half-page advertisement in the Guardian, BMW refers all queries regarding its special Royal Edition M3 Coupe to pauline.yorlegg@bmw.co.uk.
An e-mailed request for comment elicited the following response from the BMW team:
“Thank you for your interest in the BMW M3 Royal Edition. We would be delighted to send you more details about the model if it weren’t for the fact that it was an April Fool’s joke.”
Branson was arguably the day’s most outlandish prankster with an interplanetary deal.
A statement from his Virgin Group said he planned to bulk up Pluto’s planetary mass in order to have it reinstated as a planet after its ignominious downgrade to dwarf planet in 2006.
The mission was to “set an example for struggling entrepreneurs facing setbacks.”
Low cost airline Ryanair promised to introduce “child free” flights from October in what most people assumed was a joke.
However, the idea of a peaceful journey clearly appealed to some online commentators.
“All airlines should offer child-free flights. If you have ever flown for six hours with some brat kicking the back of your seat the whole way, then you would agree,” wrote “PM62” on USA Today’s Web site.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
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