On April Fools' Day you expect lies and fakery all over the telly, internet and in the newspapers. But false news and japes have been year-round features, from the punk rock fun of the band Crass hoaxing a conversation between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher (it may have nearly started the third world war) to Scottish Hip-hop duo Silibil n' Brains pretending to be from California so they could get famous. Then there was the BBC show Ghostwatch that terrified a generation into thinking a live ghost hunt had gone horribly wrong, endangering Mike Smith and Sarah Green and causing Michael Parkinson to be possessed by a ghost.
These and other deceptions are discussed in a one day event at Conway Hall in Holborn on 1 April (no joke) called Deception Day. Hoaxing is all good fun and games until something gets broken, so among the ghosts and musical japes are talks on deception, UFOs, fake cancer myths and more. Plus there'll be journalists and writers from Little Atoms, Buzzfeed and other publications, discussing fake news, the damage it can do and asking what could be done about it.
A thought-provoking day of fun things that are fake, and fake things that are real problems. Deception Day runs from 10am-5.30pm on 1 April 2017. Full information and tickets are available from Conway Hall Ethical Society's website and the London Fortean Society.
