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Tech sympathisers join ex HP boss in head-shaving protest.

One of the more astonishing non-tech news stories today was the discovery of a hybrid "ling" or heather shrub, which has powerful Viagra-like properties

Equally astonishing, to those who knew her, was the discovery that Carly Fiorina has taken against the media, and shaved her head, as a sign of feminist solidarity with pop singer Britney Spears.

Less surprising, perhaps, is the leaking of plans to protect robots from abuse by humans: "The "Robot Ethics Charter", which will be unveiled later this year, will insist that humans should not exploit robots and should use them responsibly."

Tech freaks who remember the first attempts at high fidelity, a hundred years ago, will have been quite pleased to learn that the dog which thought a gramophone recording was his master's voice is to get its last appearance: "This week the HMV group is switching to Gromit. The only masters voice he is used to, is Wallace saying: 'Nice cheese, Gromit,' as reported by The Times online. It added: "It is a unique marketing deal in which no money has changed hands."

In the arts, or maybe politics, Kevin Spacey has confessed to having found a theatrical role for soon-to-be-ex Prime Minister, Tony Blair: Arthur Miller's The Crucible, in which Blair will play the part of the Rev. John Hale. It is, says the Observer, likely to be a sell-out.

Kevin Spacey told The Observer: 'We're always looking out for talent in unexpected places. When I first approached Tony at the Labour
conference he just laughed. Then he looked at me and said: "Seriously?"

Sadly, as April 1st comes to an end in the UK, the world turns out to be less sceptical even than the fictional Blair.

"Love it or hate it," comments Baltimore TV station WBAL, "29 percent of workers say they have either initiated or been on the receiving end of an April Fool's Day prank at work, according to a press release about CareerBuilder.com's annual April Fool's Day survey."

Is this "press release" kosher? Hard to be sure; but it is Sunday, and so the basic thrust of the article - that people at work play tricks on each other today - has to be treated sceptically. And nobody else has mentioned this "annual survey" either.

The Hoax Museum was quoted by The Tide News for ten of the best ever hoaxes, ever. Yes, there really is a museum of hoaxes

The Google Gmail Paper announcement convinced some; the Google TiSP news, rather fewer. Some shared the TiSP news: "In what could be seen as a major push by the web search leader from providing services over the data communications lines of telecom companies to data over municipal plumbing systems, the Mountain View, Ca. company has now made available its Toilet / WiFi Internet service, affectionately called TiSP," said one blogger, but made it clear that this was, indeed, an April Fool prank (and if you think the Gmail Paper goes well with the Google toilet, you're right).

Others, sadly, just reproduced the press release verbatim, which could be called tongue-in-cheek, or could be called "leaving the press releases for Sunday to the intern." No marks to the Arizona Reporter, then. Or was that the prank? Hm...

A bad day, then to release real breakthrough news, as a group of Australian cancer researchers did. At least you can verify that one: most reports came out Friday.

Harder to understand is the Monday 2nd date IT Wire put on "Astronaut Sunita Williams preps for space marathon" - a story saying that despite being stuck in orbit, she'll run the Boston race on a treadmill. Most reports came out with that one Friday, too! Oh, yeah, sadly it is true.

Meanwhile if someone offers you "a proof copy of the theatre programme, contains a cast list showing Tony Blair's name against the part of Reverend John Hale," then don't part with money.

As for the Robot Charter? Afraid that's true, too. Unless the Korean April Fool day comes in early March... because that's when the story first ran.

Actually, to be really, really safe, it's probably best that you don't read ANYTHING on eBay for another week.

But I'm pretty sure this is the only intentionally daft story in The Register this weekend... well, maybe. So far.