Here’s Every Dreadful Thing That Will Happen on April Fools’ Day

Everyone loves April Fools' Day, don't they? All the laughs. All the japes. All the fun and goodtimes. All the jokes, all the joy. A jolly little day, for laughter, for glee. And then, abruptly at noon, the jokes stop. Sadness and misery. A fun void. An empty space where once a whoopee cushion lay. For just twelve little hours, pranks have a place. And then: nothing.

The above intro was entirely false. April Fools is actually extremely bad. The last time I raised a smile on April Fools' Day was in 1993, because that was a Thursday, and the Beano came out that day, and oh gosh did the antics of that boy and his dog just amuse me so much. Since then it's just been brands doing fun little 'oh, we've launched a new kind of soup, it's made from people… PSYCH!' style stuff and appalling sub-spaghetti tree news stories. I don't want to be all 'the fine upstanding tradition of April Fools' Day has been ruined by the vile machinations of powerful brands', but: have you ever thought that maybe the fine upstanding tradition of April Fools' Day has been ruined by the vile machinations of powerful brands?

Anyway, here's all the shit that's going to happen on April 1st this year. Tick them off like a bingo card as and when.

It is the year of our lord 2016 so as best I can tell there are only two famous American people currently in existence, Donald Trump and Kim Kardashian, and so on April 1st there is nailed on to be some news story or something about one of those doing something British that can appeal to us, the British people, with our British ways. 'Kim Kardashian is Going to Open a Tea House in Shrewsbury!', or something. 'Donald Trump Wanks Himself to Death W/ an Orange in His Mouth, as All British Politicians Do'. 'J-Woww From Off Of Jersey Shore Is Retraining… As A Racist London Cabby!'. 'Aaron Carter 'Likes Pottering About In The Shed''. 'Miley Cyrus: 'I Want To Live in A Big Yorkshire Pudding''. That sort of shit.

Ed Miliband launches his own range of decorative limestone tablets, in garden centres now! Jeremy Corbyn launches his own temping agencies for geography teachers! Ed Balls! George Osborne launches a welfare boost for the disabled! David Cameron comes out: 'I have held this secret for a long time: I am actually just a condom full of pork mince' ! Theresa May's Raunchy Page 3 Shoot!

It's weird that Google – one of the most respected companies on the planet, a search engine giant, the guardian of all our emails, all our datas, owners of YouTube, owners of everything – it's so weird that they do such consistently shit April Fools' pranks. Most of the time it's just announcing an unlikely product ('Google For Pets', something like that) and flipping one of their websites temporarily horizontal. For a million pounds, Google, I will think of better April Fools pranks for you. Until then I look forward to the announcement of 'Google Toilet, the voice-operated Google toilet' or whatever on Friday.

Good news, hipsters! We've developed a new cold press coffee that you can feed directly to your decorative cactus! Get a tattoo about it, shitheads! Fuck you for liking things! Our branded April Fool will put an end to all that, let me tell you! Change gear on your bike about it, twats!

Buying a pug is actually a very good investment because you can make your money back every year around April Fools Day by charging brands to stage a photoshoot of your dog like, wearing wellies, or BDSM gear, or eating a special formulated-for-dogs frozen yoghurt treat, or some other nonsense shit like that. Makes up for all the walking and the bad smell they generate, doesn't it? Pugs: the dog that works for you.

"Ooh, heard the news?" he's saying, in the way of the big tub of Nescafé, again. "You're fired. You've been fired. You're not needed any more." He's got the milk now, the fuckshow, just holding it. Oh the fu— at least fill the kettle when you're done with it so other people can use it. "So yeah, heh," he's saying. "Pack your bag! You're leaving!" You've wasted both of our time, Luke.

There will be a story about drones, there is always a stories about drones, last year it was selfies and this year it is drones, 'Drones Are The Latest Exhibit In London Zoo!', or something, 'Drones Are Being Used to Drop Ice Creams on the Poor!', drones drones drones, we are all of us slowly turning into drones, the earth will be blasted by sand and the heart of life will beat it's final blast and still there will somehow be a story about drones emerging, will we ever be rid of drones…

Not… not quite sure whether this BBC story about some puppies being hit by a train is… a joke?

Ben Stiller's Oscar Schindler is being described by critics as 'actively making Liam Neeson's Schindler, in hindsight, worse'.

"[CRY LAUGH EMOJI] [CRY LAUGH EMOJI] [CRY LAUGH EMOJI] no seriously though would anyone else genuinely wear this jumper made of selfie sticks? Its fire."

A new dating app has launched – that matches people up based on whether their cat fancies their dog.

Growlr, free in the App Store, sees unlucky-in-love singletons matched based on whether their cat – which is the girl, all cats are girls – fancies the other person's dog, or boy.

Cats who fancy the other person's dog are then 'matched' – and human love can blossom.

"Stupid quote that includes a pun about purring!" said the app's inventor, Tarquin De Foxtrot-Shitface who, it so happens, is also the CEO of another, more commercially available app. "Cats have always fancied dogs, so we thought: why not? It's the purr-fect way to meet a match!"

UPDATE: This story has been updated to include the fact that the app 'Growlr' is not real and does not exist but the story was getting traffic for us anyway so we're not taking it down.

Alright, listen, and I know this sounds like a very flimsy excuse that a parliamentary peer later has to rely on in court, but: a few months ago I joined a racist Facebook group because I thought, one day, it might make for a good story. But it turns out I am not Donal McIntyre and 3,000 white dudes all called 'Dave' are not TV-friendly super hooligans, so it's mainly just a load of dudes who haven't had a natural erection in this millennium complaining about potholes in their local roads and somehow tangentially blaming 'the musrats'. Can I bear to look away? Can I bear to leave the racist Facebook group I swear I joined as a joke? Reader: I cannot.

Any way: nailed on, tomorrow, someone will publish some JPEG that has been saved and re-saved one thousand, two hundred thousand times, saying something like 'THIS MUSLIM IS CLAIMING FOUR MILLION POUNDS PER WEEK FROM THE STATE… AND WORKS CASH IN HAND CLEANING HIS OWN BMW!!!!' and all the racists will go mental and not really realise that this is a joke and their life is a joke, and the meme will be saved and resaved again, and distributed anon onto other racist Facebook groups.

Tick.

Fun is a dead concept and April Fools' Day is the bones of its corpse and nobody has ever actually been tricked by anything since that Orson Wells radio play about War of the Worlds.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: ALWAYS ULTRA LAUNCHES A NEW SOY SAUCE EMOJI. FOR YOUR DRONE.

@joelgolby

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