Today is the 50th Anniversary of one of the most famous April Fools Day tricks. It was 1957. BBC television had a weekly documentary programme called Panorama. Panorama was a serious and respected programme, reporting on news events around the world. On 1 April, Panorama included a report about the problems facing spaghetti farmers in Switzerland. There were pictures of people picking spaghetti from spaghetti trees and laying it in the sunshine to dry. But the spaghetti farmers were afraid that a late frost would damage the spaghetti crop, and destroy their livelihood.

　　Fifty years ago, most British people did not know much about Italian food like spaghetti. Many people apparently accepted the documentary at face value. Some people say that it was many years before they found out that spaghetti does not really grow on trees.(No. Spaghetti really does not grow on trees. It was a joke. Alright?)

　　The Panorama report was a spoof. Ever since then, it has been common for newspapers to carry spoof stories on 1 April. So this morning, I opened my newspaper eagerly, to find the spoof story. There was a story that the London Transport lost property office had just found the owner of an urn containing human ashes which had been left on the underground eight years ago. Surely that was a spoof? But no, the story was in fact completely true.

　　And then I found it. I told you in an earlier podcast that our Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is expected to retire later this year. What will he do when he is no longer Prime Minister? According to the Observer newspaper, he will start a new career as an actor. He has been offered a part in a play at a leading London theatre in the autumn. He is already learning his lines. He is practising them with his staff in 10 Downing Street. He has also been offered parts in the BBC’s science fiction programme Dr Who, and in several comedy shows.

　　But is this really an April Fool spoof? Our Prime Minister is one of the finest actors in Britain today. He can convince people of anything. He can convince himself of anything. Such as that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Do you know Shakespeare’s play, King Lear? It is about an arrogant and powerful king who decides to retire. He divides his kingdom between his three daughters. But he then argues, first with one daughter and then with the others, until in the end he goes mad. Tony Blair as King Lear? Yes – I think so.