So were you fooled?

Reading through my emails this morning I started feeling incredulous at some of the content until I looked at the date - 1 April.

Sadly we missed out on trying to fool our audience with a ridiculous made up story this year because funnily enough none of us actually work on a Sunday as a rule. That would have been a joke too far!

Some of the top pranks I've found from yesterday include:

Google

Google proved itself to be a top fooler with an announcement that it was releasing a version of Google Maps for the 'long neglected' Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The graphics released were stunning, showing a heavily pixellated Buckingham Palace. Gaming geeks everywhere were in heaven.

ThinkGeek.com

Similarly ThinkGeek.com appealed to retro gaming fans by launching an iPad version of the childhood classic Hungry Hippos, which showed a set of the plastic hippos attached to the iPad. Personally I would have bought one of those - a bargain at $29.99.

Virgin

Richard Branson also got in on the April Fool's act by announcing that he was going to be taking people on trips to the centre of the Earth via his 'Virgin Volcanic' programme. He even said he had talked Hollywood actor Tom Hanks into taking part. Well, not everyone wants to go into space.

Occado.com

Retailer Occado.com had customers yearning for the good life after launching an offer to deliver live farm animals to their door for the freshest produce available. Chickens would be delivered for £25 and cows for up to £2,000. I wonder if they had any orders?

And closer to home:

UK Fast

The jokers at UK Fast revealed that they were set to turn their employees into 'exercise machines' to power their datacentres. By attaching specially designed battery packs to employees, the firm said it can plug the power generated back into the grid to keep things running. It even supplied pictures.

If I have missed a spectacular April Fool, please do let me know.