Yesterday across the internet a series of very strange stories were posted by various organisations and bloggers. It took some people a long time to wake up to the fact it was the first of April - April Fools Day!
For example: Lonely Planet in the Uk lead with this amazing story:
Passenger Strike at Heathrow
London’s central airport, notorious for its delays and recently hit by a British Airways strike, has ground to a halt for a whole new reason: a passenger strike. As officials struggled to contain the mass movement, started seemingly by a single act of recalcitrance at a baggage checkpoint, the entire airport became choked by passengers refusing to open laptops for inspection, taking off only one shoe, loading their pockets with change, and dancing backwards and forwards over security lines.
‘We’d been in the line for two hours,’ said Velma Wheelycase of Basingstoke, who had intended to fly to Thailand for a resort holiday. ‘My husband and I saw a young man who insisted on going through the x-ray machine with his baggage. He just lay down on the conveyer belt and went right through. There was a bit of an uproar, a bit of a kerfuffle, then all the people in the queue behind him followed suit. Then we saw the line next to us seize the stick detectory thing they run over your body. And they started frisking the guards.’
With a single ‘Wheeeeeeeee!’, Mrs Wheelycase took her turn on the x-ray conveyer belt and disappeared into the interior of the machine.
The strike spread in a wave-like movement throughout the airport. Passengers laid down on travellators and in jetways and flooded the food halls, where there was mockery of serving sizes and sharp criticism of the coffee.
In an age where the airline queue has become akin to the breadlines of Soviet Russia, it would appear there is a new revolution in town. Heathrow officials were unavailable for comment.
Thorn Tree lays down the law on spelling "Traveller"
The customarily cool-as-ice moderators on Thorn Tree travel forum have erupted into an uncharacteristic flame war, leaving the Lonely Planet on-line community confused, anxious, and uncertain about the future.
Showing an unusual disregard for the company’s own Community Guidelines, the row appears to have erupted over the spelling of the word "Traveller". At 10:15am (GMT) on 1 April 2010, US-based Thorn Tree moderator posted a message intended to calm the turbulent waters of the forum’s volatile Scandinavia branch. The post was modified at 10:27am by an Australia-based moderator who tweaked the spelling of the word ‘traveler’ to the Commonwealth-preferred ‘traveller’.
And then there was that cable car story...
Yes, The View from Fez had its little prank. The story on the cable car up Jebel Zalagh fooled a surprising number of people, including a certain author of a guide book on Morocco. His name shall be withheld as he is suffering a certain amount of red face over the incident.
For those who missed it, after reading the article the readers were invited to see more technical details and were offered this link: Technical Info
"Poisson d'Avril!" Thankfully it will be another year before we feel the urge to dream up another story like that.
2 comments:
April April!! HAHA!!! Let us just hope that the tourist board of Fez did not read your article and did not like the idea about a cable car to Mt Zalagh otherwise we won't be laughing :-((
It was just too much at 7am, before a coffee and before the school run. I stand by all my backup comments though. And it was also me who reread what I had submitted a few minutes later and then wrote 'Poisson d'avril'?
!!
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