Articles From - March 2010
April 1st is celebrated in many countries across the globe, whereby people play hoaxes or practical jokes on each other. The exact origin of April Fool’s day is unknown - there are several theories, none of which sound that exciting to me, so I won’t bore you with them – I’m sure you can research them yourselves. I have, however, found some absolute corking hoaxes that have been played over the years.
1. The Swiss Spaghetti Harvest Hoax of 1957 – a well renowned BBC news show reported on a bumper spaghetti harvest in southern Switzerland.
2. The Instant Color TV Hoax of 1962 – a Swedish TV channel claimed that viewers could instantly convert their existing black and white television sets to color by pulling a nylon stocking over the TV screen
3. The left-handed Whopper Prank of 1998 – Burger King advertised the introduction of a ‘Left Handed Whopper Burger’ to their menu which was specially designed for the 32 million left handed Americans.
If you want to check out more April Fool's hoaxes then click here!
But a word of warning to all you potential pranksters – sometimes the prank has backfired:
1. London City Hall employees played a prank on a colleague (Mr Howlett) that turned out not to be so funny after all. They sent him a memo advising him that the deadline of an important report he was working on had been bought forward. The memo was dated April 1st – unfortunately Mr Howlett didn’t realize the joke. He received the memo while on holiday and so immediately returned home to get to work. Unfortunately, with the stress of his extra workload at having to meet the new deadline, he worked himself into such a state of panic that he started experiencing heart palpitations, collapsed and had to take leave from work. Realising that his health was more important than his job, he filed for early retirement. At which point someone told him the early deadline was an April Fool. Mr Howlett sued for damages and as a consequence, City Hall banned employees from pulling any more pranks.
2. Sitra Walker from Columbus, Ohio was a new employee at a clothing store and decided to prank her boss. On April 1st she called her boss at home and told him armed men were robbing the store. He immediately called the police who dispatched officers straight away. Minutes late Walker telephone her boss again and screamed ‘April Fool!’. Too little, too late - police arrived moments later and Walker was charged with inducing a panic. Her boss also failed to see the funny side and fired her!
3. Randy Wood, still bitter with his ex wife after a messy divorce, decided to play a prank on her. He called her up and asked her to come over. When she arrived, she was terrified to see him hanging by a noose from a tree in his front yard. She immediately called the emergency services only to find out that he was alive and well and he was playing a prank. Randy was fined for his prank and jailed for a year.
Don't let the joke be on you this April Fool's Day! If you want a quick and easy prank, why not create a spoof magazine front cover and send it to family or friends. You could fool someone that you’re on the front cover of ‘Watcha’, or that you are featured in ‘Great Food’. We have a variety of sporting themed spoof magazine front covers including Striker, Golf, Big Tackle and many more. Or you could check out our racy range and personalise ‘Hunky Fellas’ or ‘Bunny Boy’ – check them out as they’re worth a giggle!
Posted:
31 March 2010
Just a quick thought of the Day – are Easter Eggs a waste of money? Being the organised extremely generous person that I am, I went to go and buy some Easter Eggs at the weekend. Firstly I was amazed by the choice of Eggs! Should I pick white chocolate, milk chocolate, dark chocolate or all three?? Should I have sweeties or chocolate inside? Should I buy a themed Egg, a gourmet Egg or just a bog standard Egg?? Arrggghhhhh!! Not only that, but I started to wonder, do you get more chocolate and value for money in a chocolate bar than an Easter Egg?? Perhaps I’m missing the whole point and I should just buy my Easter Eggs and be done with it! I still can’t help thinking that I could get a whole lot more chocolate for my money if it wasn’t shaped like an egg!! – Thoughts anyone??
Posted:
26 March 2010
With Easter just around the corner, I’m sure you’re all busy getting ready for the Holidays, and preparing to overindulge yourselves on plenty of chocolate - yummy! So why not start your Egg-citing Easter off by sending some Egg-stremely Extraordinary Easter Ecards – do you see what I did there?? – clever, ehh?? Celebrate the Easter Bunny, Easter Eggs and having a Cracking time and send an Ecard or printed card.
And to round off my Easter Blog, I have a couple of ‘cracking’ jokes for you:
Why did the Easter Egg hide? He was a little chicken!
How do you post a bunny? Hare mail
What does a bunny use when it goes swimming? A hare-net!
Please do accept my apologies for all the egg connotations – I just couldn’t resist!!
Posted:
24 March 2010
For all my UK followers (sorry everyone else!), if any of you are doing anything for Sport Relief this weekend then Good Luck!! I’ve been avidly watching all the events the celebs are doing, and they have been brilliant! For all you non celebs, good luck and have fun if you’re doing the Sport Relief Mile, or another fundraising event! Here's something Sporty that might make you smile....
Posted:
19 March 2010
Maybe I’m a bit early but I think spring is definitely here! Apparently the official day of Spring 2010 is 20th March – but I reckon it’s when the bulbs I planted in my garden last year start coming up – and they have! I have done a little research to find out how anyone knows which is the ‘official’ day of Spring – apparently it is when every place on earth experiences a 12 hour day! The sun rises exactly in the East, travels through the sky for 12 hours and sets exactly in the West – this is the Vernal Equinox – impressed?? You should be! Now enough of the Geography lesson, what ‘springs’ to mind when you think of Spring? Snowdrops, daffodils, little baby chicks and bunnies and that warm feeling inside that the cold winter is behind us….if you still need a little help getting that warm fuzzy feeling then we can make you smile – Bungee Jump, Birthday Dancer, You’re the best, Not the same without you, Incredible Hulk.
And remember send an ecard a day will make you smile all day!
I have been a bit poor in my promise of delivering weekly fascinating facts, so I thought I’d give you a few ‘Springtime trivia’ to keep you amused :
1. A tulip bulb can be used in place of onions for cooking (I haven’t actually tried this and take no responsibility if it's not true!)
2. A young robin will eat as much as 14 feet of earthworms a day – yuck!
3. Honeybees prefer yellow and blue flowers.
4. For a single bee to make a one pound comb of honey, they must collect pollen from two million flowers – now they really are busy bees!
So enjoy your first unofficial day of Spring!
Posted:
18 March 2010
‘Top o’ the morning to ye!’ - St Patrick’s Day is one of the greatest Irish festivals, commemorating the death of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland, and celebrated all around the world! Did you know St. Patrick’s Day was first celebrated in America in 1737??
Spread the spirit of Paddy’s Day with everyone, even if you’re not Irish, with some great ecards. Having a drink on Paddy’s day is a great Irish tradition, so invite your friends for a Guinness (or glass of wine for the ladies!)
Or why not search our printed cards section for our great selection of St Paddy’s Day cards!
Posted:
15 March 2010
Don’t forget!!! Sunday 14th March is Mothers Day (well, at least for all our UK followers), and we have some fabulous new Mothers Day Chattabox ecards to send! Choose from Mothers Day Rap, to Elvis Mothers Day, from Wonderful Mother to Busy Bee! If you’re Mum is a Super Hero, then tell her, or just send a classic ecard telling her you love her! If none of these take your fancy, choose from our great range of printed Mothers Day cards that can be sent through the post!
Now some strange but true Mother’s Day facts!
· The earliest Mother’s Day celebrations can be traced back to the Spring celebrations of ancient Greece in honour of Rhea, the Mother of the Gods.
· A mother giraffe often gives birth while standing, so the newborn’s first experience outside the womb is a 1.8 meter drop!
· The world’s youngest mother is Lina Medina, who made medical history in May 1939 when she gave birth to a little boy. Lina was aged 5 years and 7 months at the time!
· The world’s oldest mother was Maria del Carmen Bousada Lara who gave birth to twins on 29th Dec 2006 at the age of 66 years 358 days old!
· The greatest officially recorded number of children born to one mother is 69, to the wife of Feodor Vassilyev (b. 1707–c.1782), a peasant from Shuya, Russia. In 27 confinements she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.
For those of you in USA, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, you still have until May 9th to organise your Mother’s Day ecard – plenty of time. Remember, you can add a reminder to your FunPunch calendar and we will send you a reminder email. Or if you’re feeling super organised, why not create your Mother’s Day ecard today and schedule it in to be sent on 9th May?
Posted:
9 March 2010
We’ve just launched our new printed range of cards! We have loads of printed cards for all occasions, Birthdays, Mothers Day, Get Well Soon, Sorry and Friendship to name but a few! Simply select the card you like, personalise with your own details – you can then choose for the printed card to be delivered directly to you or to the recipient.
We also have a great range of FREE printed cards. All you need is a home printer! Get started today!
If that’s not enough we have also just connected with Facebook! This makes it even easier to send and share your ecards on Facebook!
Posted:
5 March 2010
