Here are a few of this year's top April Fools' hoaxes from the other side of the pond.

With their significant time zone advance, European countries were pretty much finished with their April fooling around by the time US jokes were at peak circulation. 

Here are a few of the top hoaxes from Europe:

From the UK:  It was only natural to expect some jokes about the upcoming royal wedding. The Guardian, one of Britain's top newspapers, started live-blogging fake royal wedding preparations and other nuptial nonsense. 

The bloggers checked out before noon GMT though, claiming they had "received a communication from Buckingham Palace suggesting that some of the contents of this blog could contravene the Treason Felony Act of 1848."

(By the way, noon seems to be the end of April foolery in the British press, as I noticed several articles marked with a notice posted exactly at 12:00 warning the readers to look closely at the date.)

From Spain and Portugal: well, actually not. These two countries don't make much of April Fools’ Day. But an elaborate hoax, written up by the British paper The Independent, claimed that star Portuguese soccer player Cristiano Ronaldo would be sold to Spain in order to ease Portugal's debt problem. The story was obviously quickly picked up in the two countries.

From France: Online shoe retailer Sarenza changed itself to Sardineza for a day, complete with a «Fishbook» page -- but you have to know a lot about French April Fools' Day traditions to get why it is so funny to see a whole site decked out in fishy imagery. To keep it simple, in France, an April Fools’ prank is called un poisson d'avril, or an April fish.

This joke was a roaring success in France – which proves how cultural differences permeate just about every type of tradition.

Betty Carlson

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