The Day Of The Innocents – Beware The Pranksters Today

As every 28th December, today Spain celebrates the Day of the Innocents – a day which like it´s Anglo Saxon equivalent of April Fools is a day of jokes, windups and pranks on the unsuspected and “innocent”.

We were “almost” taken in this morning as we perused the Spanish press for the latest news round up.

Our eye fell on the Madrid Gacetin news portal site that seemingly officially announced the building of a network of water canals through the capital – indeed the article went into some depths with quotes from ministers and pressure groups welcoming the announcement of Madrid´s own Little Venice – what a good initiative we thought, before delving further – NOTA: Esta noticia es una broma. ¡¡Feliz día de los Santos Inocentes!!

Expect lots of “fake news” today. On the other hand the Spanish daily El Pais today published it´s 2020 round up of stories that looked pranks but were in fact real!

Indeed, if one had read a report stemming from China in December 2019 of a “mysterious disease” that would paralyse the world in 2020 – would you have believed it?

So, if you read the news in Spanish today, think twice if you find something hard to believe, “no sea usted inocente,” then again……