Swedish media enjoy April Fool jokes

The royal wedding, doggie doo DNA and a confession from Alfie Atkins' secret friend, as well as The Local's own Japanese girl band, were among the traditional April Fool's Day hoaxes in the Swedish media on Wednesday.

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This year's Aprils Fool's Day jokes were varied in character and a good thing too as next year an EU directive is set to outlaw the practice - perhaps also a joke on you?

Sloppy dog-owners should watch out as a new scheme set to be launched in England to use DNA technology gathered from the offending dog poo is set to be used to trace their guilty owners.

The idea was reported by Sundsvall Tidning in northern Sweden this morning to be gaining popularity in Sweden.

"Around this time of the year we get in a lot of complaints from pedestrians who stand in dog pooh. It would be nice to get to grips with the situation," Breton Canem at Sundsvall county council said.

Uppsala Nya Tidning reported a scoop that the June royal wedding between Crown Princess Victoria and her fiancé Daniel Westling would be moved to Uppsala Cathedral.

The reason given was that Stockholm's Storkyrka was considered too small to house the royal couple and their wedding party.

As the church is located in Stockholm's Old Town, with its winding, narrow alleys, security operations would also be too complicated.

As if that were not sufficient reason to move the wedding then the new organ installed in the cathedral, reportedly tipped the balance in favour of the town, located 60 kilometres north of the Swedish capital.

The Local reported in February about a suspected drink driver who successfully argued to a Swedish court that a 1.25 metre long-haired Norwegian going by the name of Alfie Atkins' secret friend, was actually driving.

While the Swedish court admitted the explanation on a technicality it expressed doubt as to the story's viability. According to Värmland's Folkblad this morning, the secret friend (Mållgan in the Swedish translation), did in fact exist and they had secured an interview.

The newspaper reported that he had been hit by a fit of bad conscience and desired to come clean about the incident.

Several newspapers followed the same line and formulated their April Fool's Day hoaxes around wind power.

Dalarnas Tidningar published Danish research that argued that wind turbines make the earth spin more slowly.

The consequences included longer days and a review of the system of hours and minutes.

Dagens Nyheter reported on a VIP pass for Stockholm's public transport network. The pass would, for 1,000 kronor ($120) per month, guarantee a seat on metro trains and grant priority boarding on the city's buses.

That left the EU directive that threatened to bring an end to the April fun. The origins of April Fool's Day are unclear but the tradition is accepted to date back several hundred years.

In its thirst for modernization of all things European the EU, according to VLT, had announced the introduction of a ban on "misleading news in the press, radio and television".

The EU argued that the jokes could be construed as damaging to the trust held by Europeans in the authorities and the mass media. Believe what you will...