Everyone seems a little paranoid today, not accepting anything given to them, crossing the corridor to steer clear of people, checking every door and seat near them, basically playing it safe by avoiding any human contact for 24 hours. Just remember that it works both ways – next time your manager says to you “let’s go for a meeting”, just say “a likely story!!” and stay where you are until the day safely passes. If your other half asks you to tidy up, try the easy response of “I’m not falling for that one!!”. You can literally get out of everything today on the pretense of it being a setup. Quality.

Back in fantasy football world though, last nights Champion League clashes finished off another month. Tom Jones picks up the Manager of the Month prize with 316 points, closely beating Rhodri Evans with 309 and Ksenia Shirokova with 305. Thankfully there is some justice in the world though and Rhodri did pick up the Highest Climber prize, up 39 places, again narrowly beating Scott Marshall up 30 and Jon Edwards up 27. Meanwhile Michael Davey (1400) and Andy Robertshaw (1300) both pick up a quid for finishing the month on a perfect hundred.

So which players have been the best value for money? Well R Johnson is 140 points per £m but has been chosen by 31 of our teams. Meanwhile J Craddock is 116 points per £m but just one person has him. There’s also been some great value in J O’Hara at 91points per £m (3 teams), S Carr at 89 points per £m (2 teams), M Etherington 89 points per £m (1 team) and L Bowyer 84 points per £m (1 team).

It’s also interesting to look at the most chosen players this season. Lampard is in 90 teams but has justified himself with 271 points so far. How about Gerrard though? Same price (£8.5m) and in 75 teams but has scored just 165 points? Rooney has definitely been good value, in 63 teams and racking up a massive 368 points. Owen is still languishing in 49 teams but has just 79 points and likewise Turner is in 41 teams but managed just 62 points?

That’s it for now. Just been reading some of the greatest April Fools pranks of all time. Here are a couple of classics:

In April 1976, the British astronomer Patrick Moore announced on BBC Radio 2 that at 9:47 AM a once-in-a-lifetime astronomical event was going to occur that listeners could experience in their very own homes. The planet Pluto would pass behind Jupiter, temporarily causing a gravitational alignment that would counteract and lessen the Earth’s own gravity. Moore told his listeners that if they jumped in the air at the exact moment that this planetary alignment occurred, they would experience a strange floating sensation. When 9:47 AM arrived, BBC2 began to receive hundreds of phone calls from listeners claiming to have felt the sensation. One woman even reported that she and her eleven friends had risen from their chairs and floated around the room!!!

In April 1998, Burger King published a full page advertisement in USA Today announcing the introduction of a new item to their menu: a “Left-Handed Whopper” specially designed for the 32 million left-handed Americans. According to the advertisement, the new whopper included the same ingredients as the original Whopper (lettuce, tomato, hamburger patty, etc.), but all the condiments were rotated 180 degrees for the benefit of their left-handed customers. The following day Burger King issued a follow-up release revealing that although the Left-Handed Whopper was a hoax, thousands of customers had gone into restaurants to request the new sandwich. Simultaneously, according to the press release, “many others requested their own ‘right handed’ version.”

In April 1977, the British newspaper The Guardian published a special seven-page supplement devoted to San Serriffe, a small republic said to consist of several semi-colon-shaped islands located in the Indian Ocean. A series of articles affectionately described the geography and culture of this obscure nation. Its two main islands were named Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse. Its capital was Bodoni, and its leader was General Pica. The Guardian’s phones rang all day as readers sought more information about the idyllic holiday spot. Only a few noticed that everything about the island was named after printer’s terminology. The success of this hoax is widely credited with launching the enthusiasm for April Foolery that gripped the British tabloids in subsequent decades.

In April 1995, Discover Magazine reported that the highly respected wildlife biologist Dr. Aprile Pazzo had found a new species in Antarctica: the hotheaded naked ice borer. These fascinating creatures had bony plates on their heads that, fed by numerous blood vessels, could become burning hot, allowing the animals to bore through ice at high speeds. They used this ability to hunt penguins, melting the ice beneath the penguins and causing them to sink downwards into the resulting slush where the hotheads consumed them. After much research, Dr. Pazzo theorized that the hotheads might have been responsible for the mysterious disappearance of noted Antarctic explorer Philippe Poisson in 1837. “To the ice borers, he would have looked like a penguin,” the article quoted her as saying. Discover received more mail in response to this article than they had received for any other article in their history.

Full list here: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/aprilfool/

Have an EGGcelent weekend!!!

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com

£6 goes to M Davey who was the October Manager of the Month with 270 points, closely followed by Jock with 244 and Cameron with 237.

£5 goes to Emily who climbed a massive 82 places in the month, closely followed by M Davey up 77 and Jock again up 76.

Since not a single person finished the month on a multiple of 100 and would therefore have claimed £1 each – for this month I have extended the prizes to those with a multiple of 10 but just 50p each – this means that all these jammy people have opened their account: Quirky, Fitzpatrick, J Cann, Wheeler (D), M Davey, Cameron, Caden Oestrich, Joanne S, James M, Andrew Edwards, A Kyle, Steven Williams, Nicolas Threasher, Tim Littler, Jake Alexander, Jon Griffiths, Nia Williams and Mat James!!!

At the top of the league we still have Luan but Andy G has climbed into second place pushing Anna and Joanne down a slot, whilst Tom Jones is up into 5th followed by Sibley in 6th whilst Michael and Cameron enter the top 10 at the expense of Keivan and Lyons.

Some of the mini battles that are going on look like this:

Marshall vs Edwards is too close to call at 537 vs 527
Lyons vs Brown vs Quirk is also hottening up at 566 vs 471 vs 538
Baber vs Jones vs Radford may be turning into a two horse race with 338 vs 528 vs 535
Scally vs Baker vs Else vs Stafford vs Dack looks like it has seen its first call for a medic with 533 vs 465 vs 553 vs 474 vs 258

We’ll cover some more inter league stories next week.

In addition to the normal prizes, there will also be a couple of fun competitions this month (with prizes) and all you have to do to enter is leave an answer to one or both of these questions on the website…

1) How many points will be scored in the final 5 International rugby games at the end of the month? (The games are France v New Zealand, Ireland v South Africa, Italy v Samoa, Scotland v Argentina, Wales v Australia and obviously all answers need to be submitted before match day which is the 28th!!!)

2) Name one of the items that you think will be in the Yahoo Top 10 Most Searched List on 1st December. Check out www.yahoo.co.uk (top right) to see the kind of things that Paris Hilton loving, Wayne Rooney worshipping, Royal Mail slagging people are looking for.

Ok that’s it for now. Let’s have some lunch.

www.thisisfantasyfootball.com