Wednesday sees the introduction of a new tax on fresh air, and residents of Ireland will be charged on a sliding scale according to their individual lung capacity.
Actually that’s not true (not yet, anyway). Wednesday is, of course, April Fools’ Day. There are conflicting views as to the origins of this day, but perhaps the most likely theory is that it was first celebrated shortly after the adoption of the Gregorian calendar to ridicule those who insisted on adhering to the outmoded Julian calendar. Legendary hoaxes have included the BBC Panorama report on the Swiss spaghetti harvest; the introduction by Burger King of a Whopper for left-handed diners, and the Guardian newspaper’s special seven-page supplement devoted to the Republic of San Serriffe, an imaginary archipelago located in the Indian Ocean.