GREATER practical and financial help for parents is on the cards now that a new 'family law' has passed its second reading in the Council of Ministers, with extended maternity and paternity pay, protected time...
Fooled you: It's Holy Innocents' Day, Spain's 'April 1'
28/12/2019
BE CAREFUL what you believe today if you're in Spain – December 28 is the national equivalent of April Fool's, and you can expect all types of attempts to pull the wool over your eyes over the next 24 hours.
Today is Holy Innocents' Day on the Catholic calendar, and actually, it's not funny at all. It's a day for remembering children who never made it to adulthood, and is usually marked by mass in their honour – in fact, in Tudor Britain and late-Mediaeval Spain, this was a big event, because infant mortality was so high that almost every family would have experienced the loss of a child at least once.
But to lighten the mood, Spain has long marked the occasion by honouring children in the second-best way possible: the first would be giving the living ones presents, but they get plenty of those on Christmas Eve night and the night of January 5 when the Three Kings visit; the second is acting as childishly as possible.
Playing practical jokes on people, making them look daft and having a laugh at their expense is a great way to find your inner child, and if you're a victim, the best reaction is to laugh at yourself for falling for it.
Clearly, in these days of 'fake news', the media has largely stopped the tradition of including spoof stories on December 28 – it's considered bad taste now, and one could argue that sometimes, what we've read in the press in the last few years has often been stranger than fiction, making Inocentadas, as these practical jokes are known, almost redundant.
But every now and again one will crop up on TV, on the internet or in the world of sports and arts – and even in company adverts and the emergency services – although they usually clarify in the same text that they are only joking.
Here are some of the best in recent years we've seen in Spain.
Police cars at 350km/h
A Guardia Civil tweet in 2017 claimed the force had acquired 15 new 'high-speed', 660CV cars.
They were reportedly capable of going from zero to 100 kilometres per hour (nought to 60mph, literally) in 3.6 seconds, and which would travel at over 350 kilometres per hour (218mph), trebling the top speed on Spanish motorways.
But the hashtag #SantosInocentes ('Holy Innocents') was added at the bottom, with the warning that 'those on the run cannot escape Holy Innocents' Day', and emojis of crying-with-laughter faces.
Takeaway chocolate wafers with pepperoni and anchovies?
Also in 2017, the Spanish distributors behind Cadbury's KitKat announced a new version of the popular chocolate-wafer fingers – pizza-flavoured.
Fun-run dress code
Madrid city council announced all runners, not just at competitions but those out jogging for pleasure, were required to wear shorts and strappy tops – even the men.
And in the Greater Madrid region town of Vallecas, where a famous winter fun-run known as the San Silvestre takes place just after Christmas, the council reported that for the first time, the 2018 version would include a non-human participant – an Artificial Intelligence-programmed robot.
Hell hath no fury...
...like a Valencian witnessing 'paella blasphemy', which British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has already been guilty of after presenting a version containing chorizo spicy sausage – something inhabitants of the eastern region which invented the dish called 'an abomination'.
Just to wind them up even further, famous regional paella-rice firm Arroz Dacsa announced a new version about to hit the market which was 'specially designed to go with chorizo' and a new own-branded type of chorizo 'specially for paella' (first picture).
Fortunately, enough Valencians checked their calendar before online mutiny broke out.
Political wind-up
Left-wing political party Podemos, member of the opposition at the time and set to be competing against the current caretaking socialist government in the April 2019 elections, made a shock announcement in its press conference on December 28, 2018 – socialist leader Pedro Sánchez intended to hold a referendum over whether Spain should keep its monarchy or become a republic.
A barrage of questions followed from reporters, including how on earth Podemos could have found out about such a drastic decision which the socialists had never mentioned.
Podemos insisted it had 'inside information', but later revealed it was all an Inocentada.
New chairman for FC Waka Waka...and MotoGP racer slows down
Sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo claimed FC Barcelona's Gerard Piqué was planning to retire from play in 2020 and to take over as chairman of the club from 2021.
In honour of his wife, Colombian pop-rocker Shakira, whom he met during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Piqué intended to rename Barça's Camp Nou stadium as the 'Waka Waka Stadium', after Shakira's hit song which became the Cup anthem.
Meanwhile, international cycling team Movístar announced on Twitter, citing the magazine Ciclismo a Fondo, that MotoGP rider Aleix Espargaró had planned to ditch the fast track and take life in the slow lane, swapping his motorbike for a pushbike.
“It's a very brave move,” Movístar stated.
Aleix himself, and world-class Spanish-born cyclist Alejandro Valverde, carried on with the joke in the thread until it was eventually revealed to be another Inocentada.
Back to a 'green' future
Hoverboards, or electric skateboards, were only just becoming popular in 2018 – although they do not 'float' above ground like those seen on Back to the Future II, these and 'telephone on TV' are among the predictions from the film with Michael J. Fox which turned out to be almost true for the second decade of the 21st century. And they are emission-free, so when Madrid's regional government announced grants of up to 100% of the cost of purchase for anyone who wanted to buy one, thousands of residents' ears pricked up.
It was only the last line that gave away the fact it was an Inocentada – that anyone keen to take advantage of the offer should apply at the Marty McFly Association of Nostalgic Friends of Flying Hoverboards.
Auction in a manger
Barcelona's mayoress Ada Colau announced on Twitter that the city's giant Nativity scene – which goes up every Christmas season, as is the case with most towns in Spain – would be auctioned off after the festive season and the proceeds would pay for extra festive lights in 2019.
But she later revealed she was pulling everyone's leg.
Two-Seater cars?
A television advert in 2006 claimed Spanish motor brand Seat was offering a two-for-one deal on its cars.
“Seat will be selling two cars in January for the price of one to clear its overstocks,” the commercial claimed.
Obviously, it wasn't.
El Greco, Goya, Velázquez, Cecilia...
Back in 2012 after 81-year-old parishioner Cecilia Giménez caused a furore with her unfinished restoration of the Ecce Homo fresco in her local church in Borja (Zaragoza province), the international headlines led to its becoming a tourist attraction, with Ryanair flights for €1 launched, souvenirs created, a fee charged for visiting it, and bars and restaurants in the sleepy, 5,000-strong land-locked village seeing their turnover multiply.
And Yahoo News jumped on the wagon for Holy Innocents' Day that year – it claimed Cecilia's Ecce Homo was due to be exhibited at Madrid's famous El Prado museum from July 1, with an extra €10 charged to view it.
But it remains on the wall in the church in Borja, and can still be visited for a lot less than €10 a ticket.
Stonehenge: Not as old as we thought
Historian and journalist Antonio Martínez Ron, better known as Aberrón, even fooled National Geographic a decade ago when he claimed the iconic megalithic monument in Salisbury, UK was not a prehistoric feat of archaeology, but that an engineer and his friends had built it at the beginning of the 20th century and passed it off as being the work of some of Britain's earliest settlers. Calling Stonehenge 'one of the greatest scientific scandals in history', Aberrón even provided fake 'evidence'.
Unfortunately for Aberrón, his article was published in the UK, where the concept of Inocentadas is unknown – a set-up like this could only have worked as a practical joke on April 1, meaning everyone believed it and he was left with egg on his face.
Sorry, Instagrammers...
Social media had barely been invented at the time, meaning the furore was not as huge as it would have been today when the Internet Surfers' Association claimed, in 2006, that the ministry of agriculture had banned photographing food and publishing the pictures.
The Association claimed it was a breach of copyright, unless the recipe inventors were credited and paid royalties – in particular the present generation of adults' grandmothers, whose rights to the patent of their home cooking were being violated.
Anyone who ignored the new law, the Association claimed, could even be punished by being sent to prison.
Given how pictures of everything from baked beans on toast to takeaway paellas end up being snapped and posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram these days, it's fortunate these claims turned out to be another Inocentada.
Washing dirty linen in public
Radio COPE presenter Encarna Sánchez claimed, in 1994, that she knew all the mucky secrets of what went on inside the Moncloa Palace, the official presidential residence, thanks to leaks by its cleaning supervisor Dulce Genera – and that an 'exclusive' exposé would be presented on air in the New Year.
It turned out to be a December 28 'Fool', so we still don't know for sure about whether Spain's leaders habitually leave their filthy socks on the coffee table, their beds unmade and the toilet seat up.
Related Topics
BE CAREFUL what you believe today if you're in Spain – December 28 is the national equivalent of April Fool's, and you can expect all types of attempts to pull the wool over your eyes over the next 24 hours.
Today is Holy Innocents' Day on the Catholic calendar, and actually, it's not funny at all. It's a day for remembering children who never made it to adulthood, and is usually marked by mass in their honour – in fact, in Tudor Britain and late-Mediaeval Spain, this was a big event, because infant mortality was so high that almost every family would have experienced the loss of a child at least once.
But to lighten the mood, Spain has long marked the occasion by honouring children in the second-best way possible: the first would be giving the living ones presents, but they get plenty of those on Christmas Eve night and the night of January 5 when the Three Kings visit; the second is acting as childishly as possible.
Playing practical jokes on people, making them look daft and having a laugh at their expense is a great way to find your inner child, and if you're a victim, the best reaction is to laugh at yourself for falling for it.
Clearly, in these days of 'fake news', the media has largely stopped the tradition of including spoof stories on December 28 – it's considered bad taste now, and one could argue that sometimes, what we've read in the press in the last few years has often been stranger than fiction, making Inocentadas, as these practical jokes are known, almost redundant.
But every now and again one will crop up on TV, on the internet or in the world of sports and arts – and even in company adverts and the emergency services – although they usually clarify in the same text that they are only joking.
Here are some of the best in recent years we've seen in Spain.
Police cars at 350km/h
A Guardia Civil tweet in 2017 claimed the force had acquired 15 new 'high-speed', 660CV cars.
They were reportedly capable of going from zero to 100 kilometres per hour (nought to 60mph, literally) in 3.6 seconds, and which would travel at over 350 kilometres per hour (218mph), trebling the top speed on Spanish motorways.
But the hashtag #SantosInocentes ('Holy Innocents') was added at the bottom, with the warning that 'those on the run cannot escape Holy Innocents' Day', and emojis of crying-with-laughter faces.
Takeaway chocolate wafers with pepperoni and anchovies?
Also in 2017, the Spanish distributors behind Cadbury's KitKat announced a new version of the popular chocolate-wafer fingers – pizza-flavoured.
Fun-run dress code
Madrid city council announced all runners, not just at competitions but those out jogging for pleasure, were required to wear shorts and strappy tops – even the men.
And in the Greater Madrid region town of Vallecas, where a famous winter fun-run known as the San Silvestre takes place just after Christmas, the council reported that for the first time, the 2018 version would include a non-human participant – an Artificial Intelligence-programmed robot.
Hell hath no fury...
...like a Valencian witnessing 'paella blasphemy', which British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver has already been guilty of after presenting a version containing chorizo spicy sausage – something inhabitants of the eastern region which invented the dish called 'an abomination'.
Just to wind them up even further, famous regional paella-rice firm Arroz Dacsa announced a new version about to hit the market which was 'specially designed to go with chorizo' and a new own-branded type of chorizo 'specially for paella' (first picture).
Fortunately, enough Valencians checked their calendar before online mutiny broke out.
Political wind-up
Left-wing political party Podemos, member of the opposition at the time and set to be competing against the current caretaking socialist government in the April 2019 elections, made a shock announcement in its press conference on December 28, 2018 – socialist leader Pedro Sánchez intended to hold a referendum over whether Spain should keep its monarchy or become a republic.
A barrage of questions followed from reporters, including how on earth Podemos could have found out about such a drastic decision which the socialists had never mentioned.
Podemos insisted it had 'inside information', but later revealed it was all an Inocentada.
New chairman for FC Waka Waka...and MotoGP racer slows down
Sports newspaper Mundo Deportivo claimed FC Barcelona's Gerard Piqué was planning to retire from play in 2020 and to take over as chairman of the club from 2021.
In honour of his wife, Colombian pop-rocker Shakira, whom he met during the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, Piqué intended to rename Barça's Camp Nou stadium as the 'Waka Waka Stadium', after Shakira's hit song which became the Cup anthem.
Meanwhile, international cycling team Movístar announced on Twitter, citing the magazine Ciclismo a Fondo, that MotoGP rider Aleix Espargaró had planned to ditch the fast track and take life in the slow lane, swapping his motorbike for a pushbike.
“It's a very brave move,” Movístar stated.
Aleix himself, and world-class Spanish-born cyclist Alejandro Valverde, carried on with the joke in the thread until it was eventually revealed to be another Inocentada.
Back to a 'green' future
Hoverboards, or electric skateboards, were only just becoming popular in 2018 – although they do not 'float' above ground like those seen on Back to the Future II, these and 'telephone on TV' are among the predictions from the film with Michael J. Fox which turned out to be almost true for the second decade of the 21st century. And they are emission-free, so when Madrid's regional government announced grants of up to 100% of the cost of purchase for anyone who wanted to buy one, thousands of residents' ears pricked up.
It was only the last line that gave away the fact it was an Inocentada – that anyone keen to take advantage of the offer should apply at the Marty McFly Association of Nostalgic Friends of Flying Hoverboards.
Auction in a manger
Barcelona's mayoress Ada Colau announced on Twitter that the city's giant Nativity scene – which goes up every Christmas season, as is the case with most towns in Spain – would be auctioned off after the festive season and the proceeds would pay for extra festive lights in 2019.
But she later revealed she was pulling everyone's leg.
Two-Seater cars?
A television advert in 2006 claimed Spanish motor brand Seat was offering a two-for-one deal on its cars.
“Seat will be selling two cars in January for the price of one to clear its overstocks,” the commercial claimed.
Obviously, it wasn't.
El Greco, Goya, Velázquez, Cecilia...
Back in 2012 after 81-year-old parishioner Cecilia Giménez caused a furore with her unfinished restoration of the Ecce Homo fresco in her local church in Borja (Zaragoza province), the international headlines led to its becoming a tourist attraction, with Ryanair flights for €1 launched, souvenirs created, a fee charged for visiting it, and bars and restaurants in the sleepy, 5,000-strong land-locked village seeing their turnover multiply.
And Yahoo News jumped on the wagon for Holy Innocents' Day that year – it claimed Cecilia's Ecce Homo was due to be exhibited at Madrid's famous El Prado museum from July 1, with an extra €10 charged to view it.
But it remains on the wall in the church in Borja, and can still be visited for a lot less than €10 a ticket.
Stonehenge: Not as old as we thought
Historian and journalist Antonio Martínez Ron, better known as Aberrón, even fooled National Geographic a decade ago when he claimed the iconic megalithic monument in Salisbury, UK was not a prehistoric feat of archaeology, but that an engineer and his friends had built it at the beginning of the 20th century and passed it off as being the work of some of Britain's earliest settlers. Calling Stonehenge 'one of the greatest scientific scandals in history', Aberrón even provided fake 'evidence'.
Unfortunately for Aberrón, his article was published in the UK, where the concept of Inocentadas is unknown – a set-up like this could only have worked as a practical joke on April 1, meaning everyone believed it and he was left with egg on his face.
Sorry, Instagrammers...
Social media had barely been invented at the time, meaning the furore was not as huge as it would have been today when the Internet Surfers' Association claimed, in 2006, that the ministry of agriculture had banned photographing food and publishing the pictures.
The Association claimed it was a breach of copyright, unless the recipe inventors were credited and paid royalties – in particular the present generation of adults' grandmothers, whose rights to the patent of their home cooking were being violated.
Anyone who ignored the new law, the Association claimed, could even be punished by being sent to prison.
Given how pictures of everything from baked beans on toast to takeaway paellas end up being snapped and posted on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram these days, it's fortunate these claims turned out to be another Inocentada.
Washing dirty linen in public
Radio COPE presenter Encarna Sánchez claimed, in 1994, that she knew all the mucky secrets of what went on inside the Moncloa Palace, the official presidential residence, thanks to leaks by its cleaning supervisor Dulce Genera – and that an 'exclusive' exposé would be presented on air in the New Year.
It turned out to be a December 28 'Fool', so we still don't know for sure about whether Spain's leaders habitually leave their filthy socks on the coffee table, their beds unmade and the toilet seat up.
Related Topics
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