Swedish media join in foolish April fun

Shampoo for shaggy hardrocker festival-goers, dog poop fireworks to save the environment, as well as The Local's own anti-feminist Viking village in Sweden's far north, were among the April Fools' Day hoaxes in the Swedish media on Friday.

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This year's April Fools' Day jokes were varied in character and a good thing too as Sweden's right wing government intends to move the day to May in its latest bid to crush international worker's day - perhaps also a joke on you?

Åsa-Nisse is a Swedish literary character created by Stig Cederholm and the film versions have served to be the latest high-brow salvo in a long line of Swedish Benny Hill-style comedy flicks.

The idea of English funnyman John Cleese playing the role of Lakebranch in a Hollywood remake tickled the funny bone of the editorial team at Smålands-Posten on Friday.

"Åsa-Nisse felt just so liberating after all the Nordic melancholy," star producer Scott Rudin (allegedly) told the newspaper.

Other nuggets of mirth included the sponsor who was set to offer all the folically flamboyant visitors to the Swedish Rock hard rock festival a free bottle of shampoo (Blekinge Läns Tidning). Wella Wella anyone?

Among those plumbing the depths of toilet humour was Länstidningen Södertälje which wrote that doggie poop can be recycled into environmentally-friendly fireworks. What's more a 100 grammes of canine excrement, nets the princely sum of 4 kronor ($0.60).

Dagens Nyheter plumped for the high-brow news of a new study confirming what women have known for years - 'man flu' is all in the mind, or at least the secret's in the testosterone.

Svenska Dagbladet meanwhile elected to follow their tradition and stay on the message.

Malmö daily Sydsvenskan revealed that Swedes are set to be obliged to pass language and history tests in order to work on the other side of the Öresund.

Aftonbladet raised the tone by reporting on a chair in England which had impregnated seven women, just by sitting on it. As if in recognition of the paucity of the joke, the paper doubled up by also claiming that ABBA had reformed in Prince Daniel's home town of Ockelbo.

Västerviks-Tidning showed that tourism is serious business in the county by reporting on the shocking news that the local tourist bureau is set to be repainted - from yellow to green.

The Local meanwhile reported on an anti-feminist Viking village in the far north of Sweden who had been uncovered after almost 50 years on the run from feminist dogma.

“Many people associate the 1960s with a spirit of free love and alternative lifestyles, but we just found the crushing orthodoxy of feminism and left wing political correctness to be suffocating,” Tor Sten of the group which goes by the name “the Vikings were right”, told The Local on Friday.

As for Sweden's government shifting the several hundred year tradition of April Fools to May 1st. Moderate Party spokesperson, B.L.Eve Whatuwill, told The Local on Friday that in no way should the government be considered right wing.