英语课程计划-April Fool’s Day（在线收听）

April Fool’s Day is on the first of April every year. It is a day when people can play tricks, practical jokes and hoaxes on each other. No one really knows the exact origin of this day. The writer Mark Twain famously said: “This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four days.” In some countries, you have until noon to play your jokes. If you play a trick on someone after midday, you are the April Fool. In other countries, April Fool’s Day lasts the whole day. On this day, you never know what or who to believe. Even newspapers and television stations play April Fool’s jokes on their readers and viewers. Sometimes people actually think the real news is an April Fool’s joke.

Some of the most famous April Fool’s jokes are quite amazing. My favourite happened in 1957. The BBC showed a documentary of people in Switzerland cutting spaghetti from spaghetti trees. Lots of people contacted the BBC asking how they could grow their own spaghetti trees! Another good one was the “left-handed burger” advertised by Burger King on April 1st, 1998. They said all of the juice would drip out of the right hand side of the burger. Many customers asked the Burger King staff for the traditional right-handed burger. Other classic jokes include the BBC’s 1965 news of “Smell-o-vision” and Google’s 2008 invitation for people to apply to be astronauts to live on the website’s new base on Mars. If you believe that, you’ll believe anything!