Last April Fools prank - this one is topical being situated in Greenwich - which is the location of my current university not too far away from this rather charming spoof. 1998: Guinness issued a press release announcing that it had reached an agreement with the Old Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England to be the official beer sponsor of the Observatorys millennium celebration. According to this agreement, Greenwich Mean Time would be renamed Guinness Mean Time until the end of 1999. In addition, where the Observatory traditionally counted seconds in pips, it would now count them in pint drips. The Financial Times, not realizing that the release was a joke, declared that Guinness was setting a brash tone for the millennium. When the Financial Times learned that it had fallen for a joke, it printed a curt retraction, stating that the news it had disclosed was apparently intended as part of an April 1 spoof.
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 21:05:22 +0000