April fool

Anyone who's been reading this blog recently (though I've checked Google Analytics and it's just me) might come away with the impression that I'm a bit on the over-serious side. All I ever seem to bang on about is God, suffering, faith, feminism, capital punishment, blah blah blarbety blah.

I can't help it - I spend most of my work and social time being flippant so this is where I come to offload the deep weighty ponderous pontifications that build up inside, not unlike wind. Very uncomfortable it is too.

Since I've become so lugubriously serious in my personal blog it seems mildly ironic that in my work capacity I blogged an April Fool's joke today. Not a very good one it's true, but one nonetheless:

ROG cleaner makes 'amazing discovery'
www.nmm.ac.uk/rog/

1 April 2010 - The scientific community is buzzing this morning with the news of the chance discovery of a possible new object in our solar system. 

Pauline Mye-Legg of the Royal Observatory's cleaning team was taking her customary glance through the famous 28-inch refracting telescope yesterday evening when she was amazed to spot a completely new object in the night sky. 'It was quite large, dark and fuzzy, quite low on the horizon' she reported. 'However, when I looked again later it had gone.'

Dr Joe King, the ROG's official Planet-finder General, said that it's too early to confirm or deny but that amateur astronomers have a long history of making important new discoveries. He did however add that Ms Mye-Legg also has a long history of leaving cake crumbs on the 28-inch telescope lens and confusing them for new planets.

In other news today, Easter this year has officially moved from this weekend to the last Sunday in April due to a mix-up over the Metonic Cycle. 

Only joking of course - happy first of April to everyone, and also a very Happy Easter this weekend!

Right, that's quite enough of such flighty tomfoolery.

Resuming my usual pontifications, I can't help noticing that this year April Fool's is only a day before Good Friday. There are plenty who see the whole Easter story as a practical joke to fool the gullible. I prefer to see it as a practical joke of a rather different kind - God's supreme April fool against evil and all the powers-that-be. Just when they're rubbing their hands together celebrating their success in finally getting rid of that troublesome Jesus character, up he pops again like a divine jack-in-the-box: 'Surprise!!'. As the cannibal said about the indigestible missionary, you just can't keep a good man down.