A thought for the day

In Spain December 28 is known as the Día de los Santos Inocentes – the Day of the Innocents. The roots of this festival can be traced back to biblical times when King Herod of Judea is reputed to have ordered the execution of all male children under the age of two in the village of Bethlehem, in order to get rid of the newly-born King of the Jews, who had been announced by the Three Wise Men. It is not clear whether there was much historical truth to the story as there are no mentions of it until the fourth century but this did not stop the Massacre of the Innocents becoming a traditional element in the Christmas story.

For reasons which are not entirely obvious the Spanish have over the years turned the festival in memory of these unfortunates into a day when one plays pranks on others. Bakers would put salt rather than sugar in their tarts, while the media would create mad stories which in the past have included inventions of a UFO attacking the royal palace; the Spanish president running off with the daughter of the leader of the opposition and (my favourite) a new law which required everyone with the number 7 in the number-plate of their car to report to the police. I read somewhere on the Web that one town allows its law and order in the streets to be taken over for a day by the employees of a toy factory with fines levied being given to charity.

As a student of history (admittedly a long time ago) I see in this a parallel with many other traditions which go back to the pagan Feast of Saturnalia when towns would appoint a Lord of Misrule who could order anyone to do anything he wanted. There was much drunkenness and debauchery, not least because the Lord of Misrule ended up having his throat slit as a sacrifice to the god Saturn. When Christianity came along Saturnalia was turned into Christmas. Rather than drawing lots, the king was chosen by putting a bean or a sixpence or a little statuette into a cake. That traditions seems to have disappeared in Britain (although when I was young they still used to put sixpences into Christmas Puddings) but goes on today in France with the Galette du Roi (the king’s cake). The Lords of Misrule wore a paper crown and told jokes (hence what one finds in a Christmas cracker these days) and everyone enjoyed themselves. The Feast of Fools, as these events were known, lasted for 12 days and culminated in Twelfth Night (hence the Shakespeare play) when things got quite out of hand as the population left their houses to sing, wassail (visit their neighbours) and drink to the health of anything that took their fancy.

In any case, on December 28 the Spanish tell one another whopping great lies and this it is not dissimilar to April Fools Day in other cultures. There are many splendid examples of April Fool pranks, notably the BBC’s report on the Spaghetti Trees in Italy, Burger King’s announcement that it had created burgers for left-handed people, The Guardian newspaper’s fictional archipelago known as San Serriffe, made up of the islands of Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse and Taco Bell’s brilliant announcement that it had purchased the Liberty Bell to help reduce America’s national debt and that it should henceforth be known as the Taco Liberty Bell.

It is a little known fact that BMW each year announces annual “innovations” on April 1 in British newspapers, including in recent years a warning about counterfeit BMWs (the blue and white parts of the logo having been reversed), a horn that had been designed to calm other drivers (known as the “Toot and Calm Horn”) and Minis being used in a space mission to Mars.

It is all designed to make us chuckle and I was chuckling yesterday when I read of a Spanish report that Nelson Piquet Jr would be a Campos driver in 2010, following the alleged purchase of part of the team by Nelson Piquet Sr. I saw the story when it first came out and even went to relevant Spanish Motor21 website to take a look at the original version, but concluded that it was a load of old rubbish and did not even bother chasing it up, let alone reporting it.

Alas, a large number of the “cut-and-paste F1 websites” went big with the story… One is tempted to “name and shame them” as they include some surprising names but this is the season of goodwill.

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