A pen with memory? Beckham for Oz? Fooled you

Australian pen maker Artline was advertising a new product in newspapers and on its site www.artline.com.au — a pen that remembers everything you write. “Forget the worry of losing the shopping list or the scrap of paper with that vital name or number on it,” read the Artline advertisement. “You can download it all later — as you wrote it, or in the typeface of your choice.”

Australian broadcaster ABC put out a spoof interview with an injured David Beckham in which the former England soccer captain said he was set to join the Australian national team, the Socceroos, as assistant manager.

Media continues tradition
In today’s headlines: flavoured newsprint, high-tech ferrets and the revelation that Britain’s greatest writer was —quelle horreur! — French.
The stories in Thursday’s press aren’t true, but examples of the British media continuing its tradition of April Fool’s Day spoofs.

The Sun says it has developed the world’s first flavoured newspaper page and is inviting readers to lick a square of newsprint “to reveal a hidden taste”. The Daily Telegraph says an Internet service provider is to use tunnelling ferrets to deliver broadband services to remote areas, and BBC radio’s Today programme has an item claiming William Shakespeare’s mother was French.

The Daily Mail reported that the Automobile Association (AA), which deals with emergency callouts to car breakdowns, had equipped its staff with jet-packs to fly over gridlocked traffic to reach stranded motorists faster.

Under an article entitled the Airborne Association, the paper said the launch of the company’s Rocketmen marked “the first time the AA has tried to go over the traffic rather than through it to reach stranded drivers.”