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full screen Ölandsbron gets its own time zone, according to one of the April Fools’ jokes. Archive image. Photo: Jonas Ekströmer/TT
Drones that will issue parking fines and AI technology that introduces special time just for Öland. Several media are venturing into the condemned April Fools’ jokes this year.
“The world is already a joke. Who needs April?”.
This is what Pelle Johansson writes this year in NSD, and is the latest in the line of media that condemned the April Fools’ joke. Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Aftonbladet and GP have already announced that there will be no fake news that can cause the phrase: “April, April you stupid herring”. In times of fake news, April Fools’ jokes have been considered redundant, even irrelevant.
But not everyone has given up on the tradition. In Sydsvenskan today you can read that the island of Ven will become a naval base with NATO membership and will therefore be cut almost 500 meters in what is called “operation Chop-Off” and commented on by the “counter-admiral” Trusty McFool.
UNT reports on how house owners will be forced to build extra houses on their plots to solve the housing issue. Ölandsbladet has instead revealed a new AI technology that changes the time only for those who cross the Ölandsbron: the nicer the day – the longer it will be. And Skånska dagbladet’s scoop is that drones will start delivering parking fines, with a “rubber-covered claw”.
The political parties do not want to be worse. The moderates’ Tomas Tobé says in a press release that he is changing his first name to Tobias because “everyone still says it wrong”.
The Social Democrats reveal that their election song for this year’s European election movement is to be recorded by the newly started dance band Baudinz – with party secretary Tobias Baudin as singer. The single “Give me your vote” is said to have been written by “the world-renowned Aprilo Uno”.
FACT Three classic April Fools’ jokes
One of the most classic April Fool’s jokes in Sweden was carried out by SVT, in 1962. In a time when there was no color television, people were told that it was possible to get colors on the television by putting a nylon stocking over it – which many tried.
TV4 reported in a feature in 2011 that the Cultural Administration had plans to change the statue of Poseidon in Gothenburg, by extending his penis by 20 centimeters, because it was “disproportionately small”. Criticism of the proposal was also reported, because it could give men complexes.
Svenska Dagbladet wrote in 1911 that the opening of the Olympic Games the following year would begin with a parade of 600 elephants, which were lent by the raja of Rajapur. On 50 elephants, musicians would sit and play the national anthems of the nations and on the others the attendants would sit and shout “Lirpa, lirpa”.
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