This Side of the Pond

Are you planning any pranks this weekend? Of course you are, it’s mandatory to convince at least one person that their shoelaces are untied on April Fool’s Day.

If you’re in need of ideas that don’t involve footwear, perhaps I could direct your attention to the origins of this holiday, which I feel is the oddest of them all. I mean, don’t you think it’s a bizarre thing to add to a calendar? When you really sit down and think about it, what on earth where we thinking when we set aside a day to play tricks on unsuspecting citizens?

Nobody seems to be completely sure how the tradition began, or w...