Return of the brick phone? It must be April 1st

As tradition dictates, the media today treated the public like fools.

The Otago Daily Times front page carried a story claiming German researchers had found an additive in printing ink that turned wet newspapers into "a key weapon in the fight against flab".

The back page of today's April Fool's Day issue was printed in a locally made vegetable-based fixing agent that burned fat when applied wet to skin, the paper said.

The paper invited reader to test the claims by wrapping themselves in the moist back page.

Telecom joined the fun with a full page advertisement announcing the return of the brick cellphone.

"The brick is back..." ran the ad, which featured a photograph of a boy holding a giant phone.

The brick phone offered earthquake protection, doubled as a dumbbell, provided shade on hot days and fitted easily in large trucks, the ad said. It comes in dynamic colours -- beige, off white and bone -- and costs "only $1999".

A freephone number at the bottom of the ad tipped off callers to the jape, saying the boat carrying the phones sank under their weight on the way to New Zealand.

The brewer Tui today advertised a job for "one man" in its otherwise woman-dominated organisation.

The role involved wearing a labcoat, carrying a clipboard and getting endless mileage from the line "I'll get this round" in the free bar, it said.

A workplace without facial hair could be a sad and lonely place, the "equal opportunity brewer" explained.

Meanwhile, residents on the Kapiti coast north of Wellington responding to a plea on a local radio station flocked to a beach to push a freighter that had run aground back out to sea.

Listeners were told the Russian ship's captain had a heart attack going through the Kapiti Island channel -- a protected marine reserve -- and the freighter had landed on Raumati beach.

One noble listener interviewed on the beach said he knew it was April 1, but wanted to know where the ship was.

The origins of April Fool's Day are unclear but appear to lie in Roman and Celtic festivals that celebrated the arrival of spring with practical jokes.

Building site rookies the world over can expect to be sent to hardware shops today to ask for buckets of steam, long weights (waits) and tubs of elbow grease.

Even the more serious news media has embraced the tradition.

Perhaps the most famous hoax came from the BBC. On 1 April, 1957, current affairs programme Panorama featured a story on Switzerland's spaghetti harvest, prompting numerous calls to the organisation asking where spaghetti bushes could be bought.

The London-based Independent newspaper ran a story claiming Tony Blair, who was not yet prime minister, had offered former Conservative prime minister Baroness Thatcher the job of ambassador to Washington if she endorsed his candidacy in the general election and his Labour party won.

1ZB DJ, Phil Shone, pulled perhaps New Zealand's most notorious prank in 1949 when he told listeners a mile-wide wasp swarm was heading for Auckland.

Hundreds of people are said to have followed his daft instructions for avoiding the stings before he revealed it was all a joke.

As American author Mark Twain said: "This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other 364."

- NZPA