April Fool’s 2015: best and worst online jokes and pranks

April fool’s day has rolled around again, bringing with it the usual super-funny-ha-didn’t-mean-it “pranks”. Here are some of the fools of April 2015:

RTÉ ’s Spire

RTÉ Morning Ireland reported that the Spire is to be removed from O'Connell street for a period of two weeks to allow for 1916 celebrations. They went on to report that the giant spike's removal would come out of tax payer's money and work out at around €500,000.

Virgin and Branson, Missouri

Virgin have famously often taken advantage of April fool's to orchestrate high-octane jokes on the rest of us. This year Virgin Group CEO Richard Branson announced that the whole company would be relocating to the out-of-the-way Midwest city of Branson. The joke was a while in the make and well produced, with a video featuring Branson and the mayor of Branson discussing the imminent move.

Marmite

A love it or hate it April fool’s joke.

Gawker’s old man face

Gawker had a video story that showed the birth of a deformed lamb from Dagestan, whose face resembled that of a grumpy old man. The story read: "Described by some as the 'anti-Christ' and others as an 'old man,' the deformed baby sheep has terrified everyone who's laid eyes on it."

Agreed.

The Guardian: “Jeremy Clarkson tours Guardian HQ after joining fossil fuel divestment drive”

The Guardian had reported that Jeremy Clarkson had joined its campaign for fossil fuel divestment. They wrote: “Following what he described as a “dark night of the soul”, Clarkson said he hoped to “regain the trust of the British public” by dedicating his time and financial resources to sustainable energy.”

The accompanying video showed a man built on the same brickhouse-like lines as Clarkson, cycling into Guardian HQ and exchanging fist-bumps with baby-faced lefty journo Owen Jones. Chapeau.

Camile Thai

The Irish Thai take-away service put up a video on Twitter announcing that the Government had put through legislation allowing delivery service vehicles to operate similarly to Garda and emergency service vehicles, complete with siren. Expect them to show up an hour and a half later so.

ASOS man-buns

The online shop announced that they would now be stocking clip-on man-buns and fooled many a twerp, as it’s not wholly unbelievable that some might purchase the fashionable hair-do in an easily-applicable form. ASOS will not (we hope) be stocking this heinous rotund bit of human fluff.

CERN and the Force

CERN definitely wins the biscuit, with their announcement today that after years of testing, they have proven that indeed the Force exists and Star Wars is real.

The researchers at the Hadron Collider posted this on their website earlier:

“CERN announced today the first unequivocal evidence for the Force. “Very impressive, this result is,” said a diminutive green spokesperson for the laboratory.”

Let’s just picture, for a second, the moment when the physicists came up with that joke.

Dun Laoghaire’s Elephants

The Dun Laoghaire Coast Guard posted on its Facebook page this morning that they had been called upon to save four African elephants that had swum ashore to Killiney beach.

They added: “Steven Wynn of DLCG said ‘We haven’t trained for working with elephants.’” Oh my days.

Heard a good one? Know a good one? Feel free to share with us