It may be this continuing chill frosting up my antennae but I have been a little late and somewhat inaccurate with my April Fool detection this year..
The origin of All Fool’s Day goes back to the late 16th century and the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in France under the reign of Charles 1X. I am not entirely convinced that all the hoaxes and pranks associated with that day can be explained by the fact that people were slow to catch on to the fact that the start of the year had been moved from the end of March to January 1st, and continued to celebrate New Year in April, resulting in the rest of the population calling them April Fools.
Nonetheless the practice of making jokes at the expense of others on April 1st has a wide currency even today in countries as varied as India, Scotland and Italy.
It was, therefore, understandable that I should have been fooled into thinking that recent reports that Easter eggs at Eversheds had fallen fowl (sorry!) of the firm’s equality and diversity policy were part of some seasonal spoof.