During the Prime Minister’s short stay in his homeland, tenders were called from worldwide private sector firms, for painting his official residence and principal workplace.
The three highest quotes received were from China (US$ 5 million), Japan (US$ 15 million) and from France (US$ 45 million).
During his next jaunt abroad, needless to say, the Prime Minister visited the three painting firms in China, Japan and France to ask them the basis for their quotes.
The head of the Chinese People’s Cooperative Painting Consortium said, “Paint: $2 million; Labour: $2 million, and Profit: $1 million.”
The head of the Japanese Painting Company said, “Paint: $6 million; Labour: $6 million; and Profit: $3 million.”
The head of the French Gaul Sablage et Peinture Industrielle said, “For you in Swiss Bank: $20 million; For us: $20 million; and $5 million to the Chinese People’s Cooperative Painting Consortium for the painting work.”
The joker symbolizes the practical jokes associated with April Fools’ Day. (PhotoObjects.net/Jupiterimages)
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One of the most light-hearted days of the year is April Fools’ Day, sometimes called All Fools’ Day, celebrated every year on April 1.
On April Fools’ Day, people indulge in playing harmless practical jokes, for example, telling friends that their shoelaces are untied or sending them on so-called fools’ errands, and also spreading hoaxes. Both the jokes and their victims are labelled “April fools”. So, people indulging in playing April Fool jokes expose their prank by shouting “April Fool!“.
On this day some newspapers, magazines and other published media report fake stories, which are usually explained on the following day or printed below the news section in small letters like those found in some agreements.
Although April Fools’ Day or All Fools’ Day, has been celebrated by different cultures for several centuries no country has yet declared the day as a public holiday.
The exact origins of All Fools’ Day still remain a mystery.
The Hilaria
Some forerunners of April Fools’ Day, the custom of setting aside a day for the playing of harmless pranks upon one’s neighbours, include the Roman festival of Hilaria.
The Hilaria (Latin “the cheerful ones“) were ancient Roman religious festivals celebrated on the March equinox to honour Cybele.
The term ” Hilaria” seems to have originally been a name which was given to any day or season of rejoicing, celebrated in Rome at the end of March and involved people dressing up in disguises. According to Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 – August 13, 662), a Christian monk, theologian, and scholar, the Hilaria were, either private or public. If private, it is the day in which a person gets married, or a day when a son was born. If public, those days of public rejoicings decided by a new emperor which were devoted to general rejoicings and public sacrifices, and no one was allowed.
Some speculate that April Fools’ Day was tied to the vernal equinox, or the first day of spring in the Northern Hemisphere, when Mother Nature fooled people with changing, unpredictable weather.
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
The first recorded association between April 1 and foolishness appeared around 1392, in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. In The Prologue to the “Nun’s Priest’s Tale“, Chaucer tells the story of the vain cock Chauntecler who falls for the tricks of a fox. The narrator describes the tale as occurring:
When that the monthein which the world bigan That highte March, whan God first maked man, Was complet, and passed were also Syn March biganthritty dayes and two
Unfortunately, the reference “Syn March biganthritty dayes and two” is ambiguous and worthless as historical evidence.
Readers apparently misunderstood this line to mean “32 March”, meaning April 1. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, Syn March was gon. Thus the passage originally meant 32 days after March, namely, May 2nd, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381.
Whatever Chaucer may have meant to convey, we can not conclude, based on these few lines, that he was aware of a custom of playing pranks on April 1st.
Poisson d’vril
Poisson d’avril
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In 1508, in a poem titled “Le livre de la deablerie” written by Eloy d’Amerval, a French choirmaster and composer might have a possible reference to April Fool’s Day. According to Wikipedia, it consists of “a dialogue between Satan and Lucifer, in which their nefarious plotting of future evil deeds is interrupted periodically by the author, who among other accounts of earthly and divine virtue, records useful information on contemporary musical practice.”
Though the poem would only be of interest to historians of music, it includes the line, “maquereau infâme de maintt homme et de mainte femme, poisson d’vril.“
The phrase “poisson d’vril” (April Fish) is the French term for an April Fool, a possible reference to the holiday when people were made fools for having paper fish placed on their backs to symbolize a gullible person or a young, easily caught fish. However, it is unclear whether d’Amerval’s use of the term referred to April 1st specifically. He might have intended the phrase simply to mean a foolish person.
Eduard de Dene’s comical poem (1561)
In 1561, Flemish poet Eduard de Dene published a comical poem titled “Refereyn vp verzendekens dach / Twelck den eersten April te zyne plach” meaning (roughly) “Refrain on errand-day / which is the first of April.” In this poem, a nobleman who hatches a plan to send his servant on absurd errands on April 1st, supposedly to help prepare for a wedding feast. In the closing line of each stanza, the servant says, “I am afraid… that you are trying to make me run a fool’s errand.“
This is a fairly clear reference to a custom of playing practical jokes on April 1st. So, we can infer that April Fool’s Day dates back at least to the sixteenth century.
Because of this reference to poet Eduard de Dene and other vague French references, historians believe that April Fool’s Day must have originated in continental northern Europe and then spread to Britain.
The changeover from Julian Calendar to Gregorian Calendar
The Romans used a complicated lunar calendar, based on the phases of the moon. A group of people decided the addition and removal of days to keep this calendar in unison with the astronomical seasons, marked by equinoxes and solstices.
Julius Caesar consulted an Alexandrian astronomer named Sosigenes and in 45 BCE, created a more regulated civil solar calendar, based on the Earth’s revolution around the Sun. In this Julian calendar, a common year had 365 days divided into 12 months with every fourth a leap year with a leap day added to the month of February.
Today, the Gregorian calendar also known as the Western or Christian Calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world. In 1582, as called for by the Council of Trent in 1563, some European Catholic countries such as France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Spain introduced the Gregorian calendar. However, many countries non-Catholic continued to use the Julian Calendar. Turkey was the last country to changeover officially to the Gregorian calendar on January 1, 1927, So, it took almost 300 years for all the countries to switch over to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian Calendar.
In the Middle Ages, most European towns celebrated New Year’s Day on March 25. In some areas of France, New Year’s Day was a week-long holiday ending on April 1. The use of January 1 as New Year’s Day was common in France by the mid-16th century, and this date was adopted officially in 1564 by the Edict of Roussillon.
So, according to some historians, the April Fools’ Day dates back to 1582 when people who were slow to get the news of the changeover to the Gregorian calendar from the Julian Calendar, or failed to understand the new calendar. So, those who celebrated the New Year’s Day on some other dates other January 1, became victims of the butt of jokes and hoaxes of those who celebrated New Year’s Day on January 1.
Escape of Duke of Lorraine and his wife on April 1, 1632
According to a legend, the Duke of Lorraine and his wife were imprisoned at Nantes. On April 1, 1632, disguising themselves as peasants, they escaped from the prison by walking through the front gate. A person who recognized them told the guards about it. The guards thought the warning was a “Poissond’vril“ joke and scoffed at the person who reported it.
John Aubrey (1686)
In 1686, John Aubrey, an English antiquarian, collected notes about popular customs and superstitions, as research for a contemplated work to be titled, Remains of Gentilism and Judaism. His collected notes were published posthumously. He wrote, “Fooles holy day. We observe it on ye first of April. And so it is kept in Germany everywhere.”
So by the late seventeenth century, April Fool’s Day had definitely spread to Britain.
Washing the Lions prank (1968)
The tradition of keeping animals at the Tower of London began in the 13th century when Emperor Frederic II sent three leopards to King Henry III. In the following years, elephants, lions, and even a polar bear trained to catch fish in the Thames were added to the collection.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a German visitor wrote, “all variety of creatures in the Tower including three lionesses, one lion of great size called Edward VI from his having been born in that reign; a tyger; a lynx; a wolf excessively old… there is besides a porcupine, and an eagle.”
At that time, a popular traditional prank to be played on April Fool’s Day was sending gullible victims to the Tower of London to see the “washing of the lions” (a non-existent ceremony).
On April 2, 1698, a British newspaper Dawks’s News-Letter reported: “Yesterday being the first of April, several persons were sent to the Tower Ditch to see the Lions washed.”
Examples of this “washing of the lions” prank occurred as late as the mid-nineteenth century. For more about the history of this prank, see the article: Washing the Lions.
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Washing The Lions (Source: Hoaxes.org)
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The above is an image of a card printed by the late Albert Smith and distributed among his friends. It’s hard to say whether any of these cards were sold as he did not authorise the transaction nor whether any person tried to use these cards at the non-existent “White Gate.”
By the eighteenth century, one of the most popular outing for visitors to London was to visit the Tower of London to see the menagerie. However, the population of the animals declined during the early nineteenth century. In 1834, the few remaining animals were transferred to the London Zoo opened to the public in 1828 in an area of Regent’s Park.
In the 18th century, April Fools’ Day spread throughout Britain. In 1708, a correspondent wrote to the British Apollo magazine asking, “Whence proceeds the custom of making April Fools?“
In Scotland, it turned into a traditional two-day event that began with “hunting the gowk,” in which people were sent on phoney errands. Gowk is a word that denotes a cuckoo bird, a symbol for a fool.
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Tailie Day
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This was followed by Tailie Day, a prank played on people’s derrieres, such as pinning fake tails or “kick me” signs on them.
Nowadays, newspapers, radio and TV stations, and Web sites have participated in the April 1 tradition creating intricate April Fools’ Day hoaxes by reporting outrageous fictional claims to fool their audiences.
In 1957, BBC reported that Swiss farmers were experiencing a record spaghetti crop and showed footage of people harvesting noodles from trees. In fact, many viewers fell for this report.
In 1985, Sports Illustrated tricked many of its readers when it ran a cooked-up article about a rookie pitcher named Sidd Finch who could throw a fastball over 168 miles per hour.
In 1996, Taco Bell, the fast-food restaurant chain, duped people by announcing that it had agreed to purchase Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell and intended to rename it the Taco Liberty Bell.
In 1998, Burger King advertised a “Left-Handed Whopper,” and many clueless customers requested the fake sandwich.
Donald Trump, the current nominee of the Republican Party for President of the United States in 2016 had thought of running for president in 1988, 2004, and 2012, and for Governor of New York in 2006 and 2014, but did not enter any of those races. In 1988, Trump was considered as a potential running mate for George H. W. Bush but lost out to Vice President Dan Quayle.
Trump, who wants to be the next president of the United States has voiced whatever caustic thoughts he has. To him, the Mexicans were “rapists” and “anchor babies“, he has used adjectives such as “bimbo” and “fat pig” to describe women. For months he has preoccupied himself with mocking Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, by calling her “the Indian” and “Pocahontas“, and insisted that she was a racist for having listed her heritage while on the faculty of Harvard Law School.
I was surprised when I was told that Donald Trump was invited to address a major gathering of the American Indian Nation. At the meeting, he spoke about his plans for increasing every Native American’s standard of living. Although Trump was vague about his plans, he spoke eloquently about helping his “Red sisters and brothers“.
Walking Eagle
When he concluded his speech, the Chiefs of the American Indian Tribes presented him with a plaque inscribed with his new Indian name, “Walking Eagle” which a proud Trump accepted pompously.
After he left the venue, a reporter asked the group of chiefs how they came to select the new name for Trump. They explained that “Walking Eagle” is the name given to a bird so full of shit it can no longerfly.
Every year, the married Hindu women in the southern states of India undertake the Varalakshmi Vratam. It is a pooja (a prayer ritual) to honour and worship goddess Varalakshmi, the granter of boons (Varam). Varalakshmi Vratam falls on the Second Friday or the Friday before Poornima (full moon day) in the month of Śravaṇā, also called Śawan in Hindi and Aadi in Tamil, corresponding to the Gregorian months of July–August.
Last Friday, my wife on invitation attended the Varalakshmi Vratam celebration at three houses of our Hindu neighbours.
This brings to my mind an apocryphal yarn about Chanakya and his advice to Chitragupta, the Hindu god who keeps complete records of actions of all human beings on earth and decides whether to send them to heaven or to hell after their mortal death.
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Chanakya (Source: religion.bhaskar.com)
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Chanakya, traditionally identified as Kauṭilya or Vishnu Gupta was a teacher, philosopher, economist, jurist and royal advisor to Chandragupta, the first Mauryan emperor. He authored the Arthashastra, the ancient Indian political treatise.
In Hinduism, the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction cum transformation are personified as a triad of deities, namely Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva respectively.
Chitragupta and goddess Varalakshmi noticed that every woman in the course of the Vratam prayed to the goddess to grant her the boon of getting married to her present husband in the next seven incarnations.
Chitragupta also heard the men pray for a new wife in each and every future incarnation!
Chitragupta and goddess Varalakshmi were perturbed.
So, they approached the four-faced Brahma, the creator deity, for advice.
Brahma: “The wish of these women are laudable! So, what is the problem? “
Chitragupta: “Lord, every woman wants her present husband to be reborn and marry only her in her next seven incarnations, but all men want a new wife in each and every future incarnation!”
Brahma: “Yes. It is a real dilemma indeed!”
Chitragupta: “Lord, what are we to do?”
Brahma thought for a while and said: “Go to Earth and seek the advice of Chanakya, the wise man.”
Chitragupta and goddess Varalakshmi appeared before Chanakya. After relating the problem they asked the scholar for a solution.
Chanakya smiled at them and said: “This is not a problem at all. Tell those silly women that if they want their present husband to be theirs for the next seven incarnations then they will have to accept their current mother-in-law too to be theirs for the next seven incarnations!”
Get Smart is a 2008 American adventure and action comedy film directed by Peter Segal starring Steve Carell as an analyst named Maxwell “Max” Smart who dreams of becoming a real field agent and a better spy, and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99.
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Steve Carell (2010)
Anne Hathaway (2014)
David S. Lee
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In Russia, Agent Max Smart and Agent 99 infiltrate Ladislas Krstic’s (played by David S. Lee) mansion undercover as guests during a lavish party to find evidence against the host.
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American actress Lindsay Hollister, a native of Columbus and graduate of Pickerington High School and Miami University.
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In this hilarious video clip attached below, when Ladislas Krstic, the villain, leads Agent 99 to the dance floor Max responds by asking an anonymous buxom lady (played by Lindsay Hollister, the 31-year-old American actress, a native of Columbus and graduate of Pickerington High School and Miami University), to dance after bypassing a row of slim , snobby women.
The two couples – Ladislas Krstic and Agent 99, and Smart and the anonymous bulging lady – try to outsmart each other in a series of elaborate ballroom dance moves, such as spins, lifts, and dips.Then, at the end, there is a nice payoff by Lindsay Hollister who shafts the slim pretty girls, which is kind of fun.
Grownups can sometimes be so thick, it is not easy to explain some facts to them.
In this video, this little girl Olivia Kendall (played by Raven-Symoné) is having a hard time trying to explain to the doctor for women (Bill Cosby) how babies are born.
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This is How Babies are Born!
Doctor: And this is my office
Olivia: What do you do?
Doctor: I am a doctor for women.
Olivia: What do you do with them?
Doctor: I deliver their babies.
Olivia: Deliver?
Doctor: When the woman has the baby inside of her, then I go in and I take it out.
Olivia: No you don’t. Everybody knows that the stork brings the baby.
Doctor: Who, who told you that?
Olivia: My daddy.
Doctor: Okay. Well, the stork puts the baby inside of the mother… and then I go in and I take it out.
Olivia: Ah, aah. The stork brings the baby to the hospital, drops it in the bassinet.
Doctor: So you’re saying that the baby is not inside the mummy? Then why is it that the mother gets real big?
Olivia: Because she eats a lot of food.
Doctor: Now let me get this straight. You say that the stork carries over, puts the baby in the bassinet, and the mother is real big because she eats a lot of food?
Olivia: You got it!
Doctor: I see. Well, then why is it that the mother has to go to the hospital?
Olivia: The stork brings the baby to the hospital, drops it in the bassinet. The mummy goes to the hospital and gets it.
Doctor: If the stork does all that, why doesn’t the stork just bring it to the mummy’s house?
Olivia: Because it’s too far. His wings will get tired.
Doctor: Where does the stork get the babies from?
Olivia: Heaven.
Doctor: Okay. There is a zillion skillion babies in Heaven. How does the stork know what baby goes with what mother?
Olivia: They are in a line. You know, like you go to the baker and get a number.
Doctor: Why when I put my hand on the mother I can feel things moving all around?
Olivia: That’s not a baby.
Doctor: What is it?
Olivia: Gas.
Doctor: Well, thank you for explaining it to me.
Olivia: You’re welcome, but you still didn’t tell me what you do.
Doctor: I’m in charge of gas.
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William Henry “Bill” Cosby Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American stand-up comedian, actor, author, and activist. Cosby’s start in stand-up comedy began at the hungry i, originally a nightclub in North Beach, San Francisco. It was followed by a starring role in the 1960s television show I Spy. Beginning in the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in The Cosby Show, a television sitcom, which aired from 1984 to 1992. It was rated as the number one show in America for five years, 1984 through 1989. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an affluent African-American family.
Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman (born December 10, 1985) is an American actress, comedian, model, singer, songwriter, dancer, television producer and a talk-show host. She first appeared on television in 1989 on The Cosby Show as Olivia Kendall.
Jugaad is a colloquial Hindi-Urdu word that can mean an innovative fix or a simple workaround, used for solutions that bend rules, or a resource that can be used as such. Jugaad can also denote a person who can solve a complicated issue.
Here is a video of Jugaad technology put to use mainly in India and in a few other countries. I am proud to say that the majority of Indians can boast of such innovations.
The above video posted by Jordan on YouTube has evoked a variety of hilarious comments from the viewers. Here are some:
Eloisa Costal Bonadio: “What is it?!? English please!!“
Athis Coquillon: “Chinese Instant roman noodles.”
Malcom Rosenthal: “Whatever it is, keep that over there.
Darren Zachary Munoz: “What everyone wishestheir marijuana could do.”
Jason P Conyers: “Whatever that is, pour gasoline in with it, lite it up and walk away from it.” (sic)
Chantelle Leanne Bruce: “This incredible desert plant often is referred to as rose of Jericho. In its dried state, it is already a great decoration of desert type terrariums …”
Lisa Cagle: “It’s a rubber band ball.”
Fatima Sano: “How is that a rubber band ball that is able to regrow and regurgitate itself and that is hard as tree bark… Please stop I don’t think so! that was nasty and I still got the hibbygibbies from watching that #Yuck” (sic)
Brandon Bullock: “Whatever it is, I’m sure someone will blame Obama.”
Lisa Cagle guess is correct. It is a rubber band ball.
Jordan built this elastic band ball together with his father. They bought bags of elastic bands and added them onto the ball for a year. As the ball grew, they found it quite difficult to find elastic bands, that could still make it all the way round. After a year, they got bored and stopped growing the ball. They left it under a table for another year. After a while, the elastic on the outer layers frayed and started snapping. Every day they found snapped elastic bands on the floor. Then, they decided to get rid of it.
Jordan suggested cutting the rubber band ball in half. He started sawing the ball. After about 10-15 minutes, weird stuff started happening. Jordan decided to film it. He handed the saw to his father and got his camera and filmed the bizarre.
At the time I saw this video it had been viewed 6,329,151 times.
Rubber band balls are a lot of fun to make, and the record for the largest one ever made used 700,000 elastic bands and weighed 4,097 kilograms (9,032 lb).
These cute Tiny Tot Santas are Standard I students of Vidya Matric. Hr. Sec. School, Jalladianppet, Chennai, India where my elder daughter Sujata now teaches.
These little Santas danced to Christmas Jingles during the Chrismas Day celebrations at their school on December 19, 2014.
They captivated the hearts of everyone with their hilarious performance!
Impressions 