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Here are some of the April fool’s jokes found in the English media in Thailand. With so much nonsense flying around, sometimes it’s hard to identify them though. The Bangkokpost.com took up the issue of nude pictures used to raise funds for sociable causes: Govt figures urged to disrobe for charity A remote temple in the Northeast yesterday appealed to elder statesmen and women in the government to help raise funds for the terminally ill patients it shelters by shedding their formal suits and skirts and posing naked for a charity photo shoot. A spokesman for Wat Pa Samun Prai said proceeds from the fund raising effort would be acceptable because the ministers would be reminding people of the way long and unyielding years of public service can take its toll on the human body. Thaivisa.com on in typical fashion pointed out reports of: A New Luxury Tax On Internet Usage In Thailand The government has announced heavy investment to upgrade Thailand's international bandwidth, but has introduced an internet tax to help fund investment, and control usage. The internet tax will be based on bandwidth and would be applied on a graduated scale according to the speed of a users internet connection. The internet luxury tax will be 970 Baht/month for most users. Foreigners without a work permit and retirees will be required to pay the monthly tax at a higher rate, 1,490 Baht/month. Sombat Merou-Ruang, director of the Alien Internet Control Division at CAT headquarters in Bangkok says "foreigners that do not have work in Thailand only hang out on internet forums, visit pornographic sites and other website lamock, different from Thai citizens who mostly use the internet for banking, ecommerce, and furthering their education". Of course you can always count on 2bangkok.com when it comes to April fool’s jokes. It’s website read: 2Bangkok.com is proud to announce a partnership with PTV. Starting from today, 2Bangkok will be the exclusive home of English-language translations from the PTV website.
Some of the upcoming news items supposedly to be discussed included important issues such as: * Thai Police miss Thaksin's hands-on leadership * Bastard Sondhi Limthongkul goes to jail for defamation * Our incompetent Prime Minister: Why isn't Surayud dropping paper cranes on the South? * Shocking revelation! Thai man has more than one wife! * Do Thai people really want satellites? * Suvarnabhumi Airport a complete success! A grateful nation thanks Thaksin Shinawatra
One of my favourite April fool's joke dates three years back, also by 2bangkok.com, simply putting up a new frontpage announcing that the site has been blocked by the Royal Thai Police. Below is a clip from the BBC’s April fool's joke from 1957, when it 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. Answering the question of viewers, how they could grow spaghetti trees, the BBC replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best." {youtube}Mb6XLunYtIE{/youtube}
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