April fool’s

One of the all-time-great April Fool’s jokes was played by a broadsheet newspaper. On April 1 of 1977, The Guardian, London, brought out a seven-page travel supplement in honour of the 10th anniversary of Sans Serriffe (capital: Bodoni), a small republic located in the Indian Ocean, consisting of several semi-colon shaped islands the biggest of which were Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its leader? General Pica.

A series of articles described the geography and culture of the place. Accompanying advertisements too turned it on (Kodak: “If you have a photograph of Sans Seriffe, Kodak would like to see it.” Guinness: “How Sans Seriffe turned Guinness upside down.” Texaco: “Win two weeks in Sans Seriffe as a guest of James Hunt“).

Hundreds of readers began calling their travel agents for bookings and the newspaper for more information. The Guardian even received a letter from a group calling itself the San Serriffe Liberation Front, which took the paper to task for the pro-government slant of its report.