A tad (just a tad) harsh
In 2016, the amount of quality journalism around being less than ever means it's impossible to apply critical thinking to every story and work out if it's an April Fools or not.
April Fool decries Blighty's dodecaquid
There's absolutely no shame in being taken in by a nicely crafted April Fools' Day spoof, but one Reg reader will be spending the next year in the corner sporting the big pointy "D" hat after crying foul over Blighty's magnificent 12-sided pound coin. As we reported last Friday, the Royal Mint has started pumping out the retro …
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Monday 4th April 2016 15:09 GMT rh587
Re: A tad (just a tad) harsh
In 2016, the amount of quality journalism around being less than ever means it's impossible to apply critical thinking to every story and work out if it's an April Fools or not.
Which would be an entirely relevant criticism had the article not contained relevant links to both the Royal Mint's press releases and Osborne's guff on gov.uk, as well as links to previous Reg stories on the matter, which demonstrate either that it's a real story, or those previous stories were long, pre-planned setups to a collaborative joke by the Royal Mint, George Osborne and El Reg.
Now which sounds more likely?
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Monday 4th April 2016 16:30 GMT Sir Sham Cad
Re: A tad (just a tad) harsh
Being unable to work out if it was an April Fool's joke or not is fine and understandable despite the clues in the article itself.
Creating a commentard account just to complain, twice, that the article is still up which obviously offended their sensibilities in some as yet unknown way because there was no way that their initial assessment of the piece could possibly be wrong = Ridicule Magnet.
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Monday 4th April 2016 13:54 GMT Jason Bloomberg
It is understandable that someone might suspect it was an April Fool article but that has to be set against others having already explained in the comments that it actually wasn't.
Sanwin had no real excuse to be so uniformed in their opinion and thereby made themselves fair game for a ribbing.
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Monday 4th April 2016 16:39 GMT Bloakey1
Re: " fair game for a ribbing."
"The welcome awaiting a newbie depends on the manner of his or her entrance. What do you expect here - a big hug and an invitation for a pint?"
I must say that this sounds a bit anal, "the manner of his or her entrance" indeed.
Yes, I will have a pint and it would be a pleasure to buy the next round. Ohhh, my lace needs tying perhaps the chap behind me will buy it.
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Monday 4th April 2016 17:28 GMT Pompous Git
Re: " fair game for a ribbing."
What do you expect here - a big hug and an invitation for a pint?
How about when you're no longer a newbie? Mind you, it's going to take more than a pint before I'm at all likely to hug you, Lester. No disrespect intended, but a bloke has to have certain standards ;-)
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Tuesday 5th April 2016 11:45 GMT dajames
Re: " fair game for a ribbing."
Not exactly welcoming to a newbie is it?
Why do you think that "sanwin" is a newbie, rather than a nonce-id coined by a long-standing commentard for the purpose of making a meta-joke comment?
It's a strange idea, though, removing an April Fool article just because April 1st has passed by. It's not like anyone has withdrawn RFC1149 in the last 26 years, is it?
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Monday 4th April 2016 14:47 GMT Number6
You only need look at the BBC's article about ten things that might have been April Fools but weren't to realise that reality is rarely outdone by the comics.
1st April is the only day of the year when people critically evaluate what they read on the internet. the rest of the year it's obviously all true.
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Monday 4th April 2016 19:55 GMT Someone_Somewhere
> 1st April is the only day of the year when people critically evaluate what they read on the internet. the rest of the year it's obviously all true.
With a little grammatical correction, that could become a 'meme'.
Actually, now I come to think about it, it would only truly be an internet 'meme' with the grammatical error intact.
As you were, therefore.
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Monday 4th April 2016 15:11 GMT Anonymous Coward
If you open your mouth...
...at some point you will put your foot in it. If you have a particular knack for this it might be better to keep your foot in there so as not to say anything ever again. The alternative is to grow a thicker skin. If you chose the latter then there will be no end of helpful souls willing to aid you in acheiving this.
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Monday 4th April 2016 16:55 GMT Jimbo 6
Re: Those ones are a pain...
It is a question that has vexed me for some time, why my trouser pockets fail a long, long time before the rest of the trousers. Over time I have refined two hypotheses to explain this phenomenon :
1) Ongoing inflation, which has resulted in me continually carrying a weight of clanking coins that, three decades ago, would have been sufficient to finance an entire weekend of drinking and whoring.
Or,
2) A nefarious international tailors' conspiracy to create a Single Point of Failure in trousers, by ensuring that the *most* heavily-abraded section is constructed of the *least* robust material.
The considered opinions of the commentard corps would be most welcome in assisting me with this conundrum.
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Monday 4th April 2016 18:29 GMT Stevie
Bah!
All that groundwork for a badge wasted. Now "sanwin" will have to be retired and the process begun anew.
As for the coloring book article, well, it was so uninteresting I didn't even attempt to read it. If you are going to do an El Reg April Fool you have to do some serious hot-button pressing in the headline to pull in the punters:
Apple Sue Fitbit in Wrist Tat Brickbat
or SCO Win Landmark Decision In IBM Linux Lawsuit
or Microsoft To Quietly Retire Windows 10: Replacement "Windows 20/20" O/S in Beta (Subtitle: New O/S To Feature native VR Integration via Windows RealWorld(tm) SDK).
And have you considered that the Royal Mint is possibly setting the whole nation, nay the world up for the most awesome April Fool of 2017?
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Tuesday 5th April 2016 01:24 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Bah!
"And have you considered that the Royal Mint is possibly setting the whole nation, nay the world up for the most awesome April Fool of 2017?"
If the queen doesn't make it till the 2017 launch date, the Mint may well look like fools. I wonder if when designing new coins they work on the basis that they may have to put Charles (or whichever name he choose to use when king) on instead of Liz.
As others have done in the past, I think Charles should go with one of his middle names. King Arthur would be good.
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Tuesday 5th April 2016 15:33 GMT Stevie
Re: Bah!
"Apparently he's already stated that he's going with George (VII) because the previous Charles had a bit of a reputation."
But couldn't that be said of everyone during the restoration? Even Edward Scissorhands died with a tin nose and a sore willy from all the rogering and poetry as I remember it.
I don't agree with allowing monarchs to pick a name. It's not like they are the Pope (Henry VIII's shenanigans notwithstanding). Charles III could rebrand the Chaz marque for a new millennium. I mean, I'm sure Mary would have liked to pick something like "Melissa" so the schoolkids of the future wouldn't keep confusing her with the Queen of Scots woman, but she didn't.
If he picks "George" He'll be just another in a long line. Besides, that would put him up against the beloved George VI when it comes to legacy building. An asymptotically steep problem curve, that.
George VI stuck it out in London when the buzz-bombs were raining down and went Out Among The (Adoring) People afterwards, whereas George VII will start out as the bloke wot rejected Diana, mostest bestest popular princess ever so he could knock off his old girlfriend. With that millstone I reckon he'd be better stacking himself against a dissolute rake with a curly wig.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
