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April Fool: A roundup of the funniest stories

By Thair Shaikh, CNN

Royal ascent: Queen Elizabeth II boards a budget airline on her way to Aberdeen, in a bid to save taxpayers money
Royal ascent: Queen Elizabeth II boards a budget airline on her way to Aberdeen, in a bid to save taxpayers money
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
  • Long-standing tradition of playing pranks on April 1; history of origin is debatable
  • Queen Elizabeth II photographed boarding budget airline for economy savings
  • Roadside recovery men will use jetpacks to beat Easter traffic in UK to reach stranded motorists
  • British group Coldplay launches perfume called Angst made with "Fairtrade" products

London, England (CNN) -- From rocket-propelled roadside rescue men, to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II flying on a budget airline to save taxpayers money.

Yes, it must be April 1, the day pranksters, fibbers and outright liars look forward to all year.

And on Thursday there are no shortage of humorous, silly and some bizarre jokes doing the rounds in the press.

Here we take a look at the best and the worst April Fool's jokes.

The Daily Express and the Daily Mirror in the UK both have photographs of what is a convincing double of the queen waving regally while boarding the steps of an EasyJet aircraft.

Read about the queen's budget flight.

The queen apparently took the £29.99 ($44) flight to Aberdeen in Scotland and was treated like any other passenger. The economy flight was designed to save British taxpayers money according to the reports.

When CNN called the Buckingham Palace press office, a spokeswomen had to confirm with her colleagues that it was indeed an Aprils Fools' joke.

While the queen's double may have missed the Easter traffic on the roads this weekend, those unfortunate enough to break down will have Automobile Association (AA) repairmen jetting to their assistance, says the Daily Mail.

Apparently, "AA Rocketmen" in lightweight jet-packs will be flitting over traffic jams to reach stranded motorists. How they will carry repair kits or spare wheels is not clear, but the rocketmen are waiting for clearance from the Civil Aviation Authority before being deployed nationwide, the report says.

Also in the Daily Mail is an advertisement for BMW offering bonnet badges in red, blue and yellow, the colors of the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat political parties.

Changing the badges takes seconds, good for the "floating voter" says the ad, and if there is a hung parliament BMW is offering to replace badges for free. The e-mail address for more information, Uwe.Beanhadde@bmw.co.uk, is a clue that this is another April Fools' joke.

Another politically-themed advertisement appears in The Guardian Thursday, which has an angry-looking photograph of the leader of the Labour party Gordon Brown, next to the words "Step Outside Posh Boy," and "Vote Labour. Or Else."

Step Outside Posh Boy. Vote Labour. Or Else.
--Spoof Labour Party poster
RELATED TOPICS

Posh Boy is a reference to the Conservative Party leader David Cameron, who was educated at the exclusive Eton College. The ad says that marketers are focusing on Brown's "Alpha male personality." Earlier this year there were numerous stories in the British media about Brown's alleged aggression at work with colleagues.

Gordon Brown's "Alpha Male" poster.

There are quite a few jokes linked to politics and the forthcoming general election in the UK but there are also quite a few linked to animals, like this one in a blog on the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Web site, which claims that an "Exhausted polar bear washed up on Isle of Mull," in Scotland.

According to the blog a "colder winter and lower than average sea temperatures," allowed the ice floe to remain frozen for longer, thereby assisting the polar bear's passage.

However, there are two pictures of an enormous polar bear, which in the second photo appears to have moved forward by two meters.

Polar bear stranded in Scotland.

Another animal story in the Daily Telegraph reports that "specially trained" ferrets are being used to lay broadband cables in rural parts of Britain.

The long sleek bodies of the rodents are ideal for running down tunnels, the paper says, although there is no mention of the fact that ferrets are more likely to chew through cables than lay them.

Read about cable-laying ferrets.

Other good April Fools' jokes include the paper you can taste in the Sun, or the World Cup winning goal by Geoff Hurst that did no go over the goal line, an article that has quotes by "German Football Federation spokesman Jurgen Akikyousuf," and "FIFA spokeswoman Aprile Foolet."

Geoff Hurst speaks about World Cup no-goal.

Meanwhile Coldplay announced on its official Web site that it has launched a perfume called Angst, priced at £42 ($62.)

The band's frontman, Chris Martin is quoted on the Web site:"This is something we've wanted to do for a long time. People like to smell nice and we thought we could help them out."

Buy the Coldplay perfume here.

The ingredients of the scent are listed as "sangre, sudor and lágrimas, all of which have been sourced from Fairtrade suppliers."