most rubbish Guardian April Fool's Day story

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https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/3/26/1332761650461/Education-Centre-map-San--001.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=77fc84f7350efabafd17894ed1a56975

I hate April Fool's Day stuff generally, but San Serriffe and the Felix de Garcia profile are quite charming imo. pretty much every one they've done in recent years has been hatefully smug and unfunny. a list of all the stories up to 2014 with scans of the original pages can be found here: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/apr/01/guardian-april-fools-list

Poll Results

Option	Votes
1996 The Queen sets up her own website	3
2016 Royal Family to announce support for Britain remaining inside EU	2
2011 Guardian turns pro-monarchy	1
1986 comedy leftwing council jobs	1
1990 showing of Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons with lost footage reinstated	1
2014 Scotland to switch to driving on the right if independence given green light	0
1999 Return to San Serriffe	0
2002 Harmony Cousins (interview with fictional celebrity)	0
2004 Peter Mandelson to be the new BBC Chairman	0
2005 Blair to make Prince Charles "countryside tsar"	0
2006 Coldplay writes song for David Cameron	0
2007 Tony Blair to star in The Crucible	0
2015 Jeremy Clarkson joins Guardian drive for fossil fuel divestment	0
2009 Guardian to be published exclusively on twitter	0
2010 'Step outside posh boy'- Gordon Brown's new campaign poster	0
2012 Shaun Ryder is Cameron's new advisor	0
2013 Guardian launches 'augmented reality' specs to offer immersive liberal insight	0
2008 Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to give Britain style lessons	0
1995 Liz Hurley - tired of lingerie, tired of life (Column supposedly written by Liz Hurley)	0
1977 San Serriffe travel supplement	0
1978 San Serriffe - the sequel (Parody of other papers' coverage of San Serriffe – Express)	0
1979 'Sky Dot' (New travel scheme shrinking people to the size of a full-stop)	0
1981 Scientists discovered how to control the weather	0
1984 Channel Sex- a new sex film channel	0
1985 'Guardian Gourmet Club'	0
1987 18th century photograph discovered	0
1988 Robert Maxwell's secret Scottish roots and spy work	0
1990 Guardian for Sunday (published on a Saturday)	0
1991 Profile of David Humphrey (John Major's oldest friend and newest guru, owner of 31 cardigans)	0
1992 The Guardian Men page	0
1993 Ciao! (Hello! magazine spoof that features intellectuals + politicians)	0
1994 Cabinet Makers (fantasy football with MPs)	0
1974 Minimal genius (Felix de Garcia, a neglected, unsuccesful artist)	0

― soref, Friday, 1 April 2016 19:51 (nine years ago)

2015 one is here:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/01/jeremy-clarkson-joins-guardian-drive-for-fossil-fuel-divestment

this one is particularly bad, I think: self-aggrandisement masquerading as self deprication, and the world's least convincing Jeremy Clarkson lookalike.

I remember that after the 'Blair to appoint Peter Mandelson BBC Chairman' story they ran a bunch of letters the next day from people who had been taken in and were sincerely outraged by this compromising of the BBC's impartiality, this seemed a bit dickish. do they still do that?

― soref, Friday, 1 April 2016 19:58 (nine years ago)

"The Queen sets up her own website" is such a 90s idea of LOL that younger people must have a hard time comprehending why it would even have been a joke at one time.

― rhymes with "blondie blast" (cryptosicko), Friday, 1 April 2016 20:06 (nine years ago)

yes, a lot of these are interesting in a time-capsule type way.

the one about a showing of The Magnificent Ambersons with the lost footage restored is pretty good for coming at the end of a Philip French column that is otherwise a roundup of actual legitimate releases.

― soref, Friday, 1 April 2016 20:07 (nine years ago)

there's something a little sad about the fact that the spoofs used to be about far-out things like shrinking people to the size of a full-stop or scientists controlling the weather, and in recent years it's the most banal stuff imaginable - Jeremy Clarkson acting out of character or whatever. not that the shrinking people to the size of a full-stop stuff is that funny necessarily, but at least there's a sense of some joy in imagination. are people just less likely to fall for made up science stories these days?

― soref, Friday, 1 April 2016 20:20 (nine years ago)

jokes must have no beliefs

― japanese mage (LocalGarda), Friday, 1 April 2016 22:29 (nine years ago)

a number of these have happened, surely? Guardian Gourmet Club?

― Mark G, Friday, 1 April 2016 22:37 (nine years ago)

April Fools Day is shit but I did chuckle a bit at my friend's (really convincing!) fake baby bump photo that managed to fool a load of people despite the fact that a few days before she had posted a photo of her in her homemade Purim costume, looking incredibly slim

This shit is woeful though, if I wanted to see worthless unfunny fake news stories I would unblock the 10,000 shit "satire" websites from my feed

― Rainer Weirder Faßbooker (wins), Saturday, 2 April 2016 14:09 (nine years ago)

the political ones are crap. liberal supports conservative, conservative does something liberal. how droll.

― remove butt (abanana), Saturday, 2 April 2016 15:16 (nine years ago)

'Obama does a Muslim thing'

― Mark G, Saturday, 2 April 2016 15:47 (nine years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

― System, Monday, 4 April 2016 00:01 (nine years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

― System, Tuesday, 5 April 2016 00:01 (nine years ago)

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