It's "April Fool's Day". Be prepared for jokes and strange news stories like the classic BBC story on the European spaghetti harvest. (Unlike our local guay tiew noodles, spaghetti is not picked from trees.)
Swiss women harvesting the spaghetti crop in the famous 1957 BBC hoax.
Be warned: It's April 1st
There is a story being spread by a social media website this morning that foreigners can go to their local 7-11 store to make their 90-day report – a report required by the Thai government telling where they are currently living. In addition, this month, foreigners who do so will get twenty complimentary 7-Eleven stamps courtesy of the Immigration Bureau.
I don't believe it. I strongly suspect this "story" is in the news because today is April 1, or April Fool's Day. You can expect to see many other fake stories on news websites around the world today.
According to legend, April Fools Day began in the year 1582 when the New Year was changed from the end of March to January 1. Those who continued to celebrate the New Year on April 1 were called "April Fools".
Over the years, mainly in western countries, April 1 has become a day to play silly tricks on your friends and family and for the news media to invent stories trying to trick you into believing them.
One of the most famous fake TV news stories was aired on April 1, 1957 by the BBC. The report showed women in Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from trees, telling viewers that year's crop was especially good because of the mild winter and the disappearance of a troublesome insect pest.
Nowadays, we all know that spaghetti, unlike our local giaw tiew noodles (ก๋วยเตี๋ยว), is not grown on trees, but back then millions of viewers believed the story. Many even called the BBC to find out how they could get their own trees.
Moving to the present, you can expect to see many unusual product announcements today. Google is famous for this and the company may have several. Here is an example from 2013 when Google announced it had added smell to it search tools.
As April 1st arrives on the other side of the world, watch for April 1st jokes and let us know when/where you see one on our Facebook page.