April fool: The ultimate merger

Merger between Pakistan Fashion Design Council and Lahore based Fashion Pakistan was an April Fool’s Day hoax.

For those who haven’t figured it out yet, the story announcing a merger between the Karachi based Pakistan Fashion Design Council and Lahore based Fashion Pakistan was an April Fool’s Day hoax.

Unfortunately the fashion industry hasn’t yet arrived at such utopia. The spoof provoked the expected flurry of queries at the Life and Style desk, some amused, others quite indignant.

Others who have had a bit of fun:

1957: The respected BBC news show “Panorama” announced that thanks to a very mild winter and the virtual elimination of the dreaded spaghetti weevil, Swiss farmers were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. It accompanied this announcement with footage of Swiss peasants pulling strands of spaghetti down from trees.

1977: The British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica.

1996: The Taco Bell Corporation announced it had bought the Liberty Bell and was renaming it the Taco Liberty Bell. Hundreds of outraged citizens called the National Historic Park in Philadelphia where the bell was housed to express their anger.

2008: The BBC announced that camera crews filming near the Antarctic for its natural history series Miracles of Evolution had captured footage of Adelie penguins taking to the air. It even offered a video clip of these flying penguins, which became one of the most viewed videos on the internet.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2nd,  2011.