Will Get Fooled Again

I dislike practical jokes that are aimed at individuals, but have always been a sucker (in every sense) for the elaborate spoofs that broadcasters and newspapers get up to on April Fool's Day. The fact that they are aimed at everyone dilutes the humiliation to acceptable levels.

This morning I woke to a rather nice story on Radio 4's Sunday programme, based on the recent fashion for using real donkeys at Palm Sunday services, which has led - so the story went - to a spate of rustling, and in some cases the substitution of donkeys with llamas (because the prophecy of Zechariah, which Jesus was fulfilling, can be translated as referring simply to a "pack animal").

I've come across several more since - the first email in my inbox this morning was an ad for a machine that would print photographs onto toast - but I'm bound to miss most of them. So, if you've seen a really good April Fool this year, feel free to link to it here, or (if it's not linkable) describe it. I'd like to read it.

Meanwhile, no one knows how to do Relaxed like Jessie.
"As swimmers into cleanness leaping..."

Asparagus Syndrome

I dreamed last night that a relative of mine was taken forcibly to hospital on account of his strange-smelling urine. I was running after the doctor, shouting "You don't understand! It's just that we ate asparagus for supper!"

The doctor turned and in my dream he looked at me with a dreadful blankness. And it came into my mind that he didn't know about the asparagus-and-urine thing.

My dream arose from eating it myself last night, of course, and also reading the asparagus Wiki page a few months ago, where I learned that the ability to detect the change in odour was not universal. Apparently it's a genetic thing, limited to about 22% of the population.

Which leads me, naturally, to ask:

[Poll #1830587]

Asparagus Syndrome

I dreamed last night that a relative of mine was taken forcibly to hospital on account of his strange-smelling urine. I was running after the doctor, shouting "You don't understand! It's just that we ate asparagus for supper!"

The doctor turned and in my dream he looked at me with a dreadful blankness. And it came into my mind that he didn't know about the asparagus-and-urine thing.

My dream arose from eating it myself last night, of course, and also reading the asparagus Wiki page a few months ago, where I learned that the ability to detect the change in odour was not universal. Apparently it's a genetic thing, limited to about 22% of the population.

Which leads me, naturally, to ask:

[Poll #1830587]