April Fool G3p09

 April Fool

"There's a snake in my bedroom!" "Come quickly—the kitchen's on fire!" "Have you seen my little cat? I put it down here, and now it is gone..."

Don't be nervous. It may not be true. In fact, if it's the morning of April 1, and you are living in Britain, then it almost certainly isn't true. Someone is trying to play an April Fool trick on you.

The custom started a long time ago, and it's still very popular today. The idea is simple: for the first twelve hours of April 1, you are allowed to play as many tricks as you like on as many people as you can deceive. Children throughout the country will try to play a trick on a friend, so that they can shout "April Fool" and laugh at their friend's discomfort.

It isn't just children that play these jokes, however: the television, radio, and newspapers occasionally try to deceive their customers with a cleverly-constructed April Fool story. Some years ago, for example, a very serious BBC TV programme did a ten-minute report about spaghetti trees in Switzerland: the reporter described how, with the recent bad weather, the trees weren't producing as much spaghetti as they normally did, and that this would make spaghetti more expensive. A lot of viewers, who didn't know that spaghetti is made of flour, actually believed the story. Another famous joke was played on the radio. A science correspondent reported that, because of strange geographical conditions, gravity was getting weaker in different parts of Britain. He asked the people who were listening to the programme to jump up and down, and, if they could jump higher than they normally could, to telephone the BBC.

The BBC had hundreds of calls: one man said he was so light that he could float as high as the ceiling. It was at twelve o'clock that the BBC gently informed its listeners that it was an April Fool trick.

When did it all start?

The custom was started in 1545 by a rather unfortunate accident. A Norwegian scientist, Loof Lirpa, was staying in London, where he was trying to find the secret of how to fly.

There was no doubt that the scientist was clever. It seems that his experiments were successful. King Henry VIII received a letter from Mr Lirpa, in which he announced that he had finally solved the secret of flight. He asked the king to be present at a demonstration flight at Westminster on April 1.

So the king, and the leading officials of the day, stood outside the Palace of Westminster on April 1, and waited for Mr Lirpa to come flying past. But, of course, nothing happened — and it became the tradition, afterwards, to play tricks on people in the same way on this day.

Recent evidence, however, shows that Loof Lirpa was in fact telling the truth. He had learned how to fly—the reason that he did not appear at Westminster was that his flying-machine had crashed into a tree, and he had been killed.

It was a tragedy for science. Most people believe that the first aeroplane flew in 1903, but this is not true. It flew 358 years earlier, in 1545. If Mr Lirpa had lived, our technology would now be much more advanced than it is.

The scientist, unfortunately, was very secretive: he hadn't kept any notes, and hadn't trusted anyone else with the knowledge of how his flying-machine worked. When he died, the secret died with him.

Although most people in Britain haven't heard of Loof Lirpa, he is very famous in Norway. April 1 is a national holiday, and people remember his flying trip by having ski-jump competitions. They also eat a special Loof Lirpa cake, which was invented by the scientist, and consists of fish, bananas, honey and chocolate.

Actually,"Loof Lirpa" wasn't his real name: if you say the two words backwards, you'll find out what his name really was.

1. What would happen to you on the morning of April 1 if you lived in Britain?

2. What will children do on that day?

3. Is it just children that play these jokes?

What other people play April Fool tricks?

4. When and how was the custom started?

5. Why did Loof Lirpa not appear at Westminster?

6. When did most people believe that the first aeroplane flew? When did it fly in fact?

7. Did Loof Lirpa tell people how his flying-machine worked? Why not?

8. How do people in Norway remember his flying trip?

9. What was Loof Lirpa's real name?

10. What do you think of this story about Loof Lirpa?