San Serreefs

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Flag of San Serriff

San Serriff is a fictional island nation that was invented by the British newspaper The Guardian as an April Fool's joke in 1977. The island state was in the form of a semicolon , the capital was called Bodoni and the name of the political leader was Pica , an unpopular general.

publication

The island nation was featured in a seven-page hoax supplement, styled in the style of contemporary foreign representations, commemorating the island's tenth anniversary of independence, along with themed advertisements from major corporations. The insert contained a detailed description of the country as a tourist destination with a developing economy, but most of the place names and characters were puns related to the printing industry, including the name "San Serriff" ( sans serif ). and other common font names . Originally it was planned to place the island in the Atlantic near Tenerife , but because of theGround collision of two Boeing 747s a few days before the release, it was relocated to the Indian Ocean near the Seychelles . Because of this late move, the authors made San Serriff a migratory island - a combination of coastal erosion on the west side and sedimentation in the east causes San Serriff to move at about 1.4 km / year towards Sri Lanka , which it eventually does will collide.

San Serriff was one of the best known and most successful jokes of the late 20th and early 21st centuries; this has become part of the common cultural heritage of literary humor and has resulted in the publication of several books on the fictional state. The land was reused for similar hoaxes in 1978, 1980 and 1999. In April 2009, the geography, history, and culture of San Serriff played an important role in the newspaper's crossword puzzle.

background

The idea for the joke came from Philip Davies, the Guardian's Special Reports manager . In a 2007 interview, he said, “The Financial Times always produced special reports on small countries that I had never heard of. I thought of an April Fool's Day joke for 1977 and thought, why don't we just make up a country? ”The editor of the special reports, Stuart St Clair Legge, suggested the name San Serriff. Geoffrey Taylor designed the semi-colon map of the island based on a shrunken version of New Zealand.

The supplement with the fictional archipelago should initially only cover one page. However, the newspaper recognized that more coverage would generate more revenue if thematic advertisements were placed alongside the text. This included a call for a Kodak- sponsored photo contest: "If you have a photo of San Serriff, Kodak would love to see it."

reception

In a period prior to the widespread use of desktop publishing and word processing software, much of the terminology was poorly understood, the jokes were easily overlooked, and many readers were deceived. Even so, many others recognized the joke and developed it further. The Guardian received hundreds of letters to the editor describing unforgettable holidays on the islands. He also received a letter from the "San Serriff Liberation Front" criticizing the supplement's pro-government orientation.

Editor Peter Preston received letters of complaint from airlines and travel agents over indignation from customers who refused to believe the islands didn't exist.

aftermath

Since 1977 a large number of other publications have been written on San Serreefs. An association of the Friends of San Serriff was founded, whose "President for Life" writes annual April Fool's letters to the newspaper. Bird & Bull Press published several books on exotic topics related to the land, including Booksellers of San Serriff , First Fine Silver Coinage of the Republic of San Serriff, and The Most Inferior Execution Known Since the Dawn of the Art of Marbling Collected by the Author During a Five Year Expedition to the Republic of San Serriff .

The American computer scientist Donald E. Knuth offers a reward for anyone who finds an error in his standard work The Art of Computer Programming . Since October 2008 this has been done in the form of a "deposit certificate" from the (fictitious) Bank of San Serriff.

Later developments of the April Fool's Day

In the Guardian on April 1, 1978 another report was published on San Serreefs, in which the island kingdom was revisited and on new developments, such as the amalgamation of the island newspapers. After General Pica was dismissed, a special edition of the island's newspaper appeared. On April 1, 1980 the topic was taken up again.

22 years later, on April 1, 1999, the Guardian published the report Return to San Serriff , which described the further development of the island kingdom in the 22 years since its discovery. The number 22 is of great importance for San Serriff; the cabinet has 22 members and the national anthem 22 stanzas. The article, peppered with satirical allusions to current British politics in the style of Jonathan Swift , reports how General Pica, the country's unpopular leader who was fond of being compared to Margaret Thatcher , seized power in a palace revolt in 1990 lost when General Melior , known as "the Obscure", gained access to the general's office on the pretext of wanting to clear away the coffee dishes. Melior was replaced in a democratic election by the handsome, charismatic, dynamic and popular new President Antonio Bourgeois , a great admirer of Tony Blair .

In the course of stronger regionalization, the Lower Caisse, traditionally set against the central government, was given autonomy , although the decisions made locally and the election of the decision-makers required the prior consent of the central government. At the annual presentation of the state budget, Finance Minister Bembo ritually exclaimed: “Everyone is rich, everyone is rich”, which the members of the legislative body acknowledged with “We are, oh wise, we are”. Bourgeois' deputy, Baskerville , has taken personal responsibility for transportation and often yells at the train drivers at Bodoni Central and Perpetua Junction stations . In the last days of General Pica's obscure successor , the railways were privatized on the condition that they could only be driven by girls who had never had sexual intercourse. This is considered to be the cause of the prevailing staff shortage.

The government is striving to ensure that those parts of the population who are currently still engaged in dull activities such as automobile manufacture can enjoy unlimited free time in the future without being forced to earn money. That is why it is so popular, but also because the government has threatened to remove all critical elements from the government's official newspaper Nugradi .

Little history of San Serriff

Extract from the history of San Serriff from the 1999 report:

  • 1794 Captain Meriwether Lewis reports that the waters immediately east of San Serreefs are open.
  • 1796 The schooner "Excelsior" under Sir Charles Clarendon runs aground east of the islands, whereupon Clarendon notes in his diary that "the land is being eaten up by the sea and poses dangers for the island of Easte".
  • 1922 The San Serriff football team are defeated 13-0 by England on their first visit to Wembley .
  • 1967 San Serriff becomes independent.
  • 1970 Scientists estimate that the erosion process characteristic of the islands causes them to drift to Sri Lanka at a speed of 1.4 km per year. According to calculations, the islands will reach the coast of Sri Lanka on January 3, 2011.
  • 1971 Regiments of General Pica's dismounted cavalry overthrow General Minion's government .
  • 1972 San Serriff is excluded from the Commonwealth and Organization of Migrant States (OIS).
  • 1973 Oil is discovered off Caissa Superiore.
  • 1974 San Serriff is re-admitted to the Commonwealth and the OIS and invited to join NATO.
  • 1977 A special report by the Guardian leads to an investment of 500 million US dollars on the islands in just 12 months.
  • 1980 The San Serriff football team are defeated 9-0 by England at Wembley.
  • 1982 General Pica saves his declining popularity by looking for an invasion of forces Adobe Island Ova Mata , a serriffisches protectorate freed .
  • 1989 General Pica is deposed in a palace revolt by high-ranking officers who declare they are tired of hearing his stories about the Ova Mata War. General Melior, formerly Pica's gardener, is appointed president.
  • 1997 Antonio Bourgeois comes to power in the island's first free elections.
  • 1998 Newsweek publishes a cover story with the question, "Is Bodoni the coolest city in the world ?"
  • 1999 San Serriff football team beat England 2-1 at Wembley.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c San Serriff. In: Museum of Hoaxes. Retrieved March 13, 2021 .
  2. ↑ Beatrix Beuthner: Targeted false reports with a wink. In: dw.com . March 30, 2012, accessed March 13, 2021 .
  3. ↑ Puck: Cryptic crossword No 24,662. In: The Guardian . April 3, 2009, accessed April 1, 2021 .
  4. ^ A b c d e Martin Wainwright: April Fools: Fooling around. In: the Guardian. March 30, 2007, accessed April 1, 2021 .
  5. ↑ Martin Wainwright: The Guardian Book of April Fool's Day. Aurum, 2007, p. 68.
  6. ↑ Elli Narewska, Susan Gentles, Mariam Yamin: April fool - San Serriff: teaching resource of the month from the GNM Archive, April 2012. In: The Guardian. March 27, 2012, accessed April 1, 2021 .
  7. ↑ Lauren Niland: From the archive: Guardian April fools - in pictures. In: The Guardian. April 1, 2012, accessed April 1, 2021 .
  8. ↑ a b c Berlin Sans: Return to San Serriff. In: The Guardian. April 1, 1999, accessed April 1, 2021 .