IN normal circumstances, April Fool’s Day would bring with it a mixture of pranks, second-guessing and outright embarrassment for those falling for them.

Known as Huntegowk in Scots – "to hunt (th)e gowk, to go on a fool's errand, to be made a(n April) fool of," according to the Dictionary of the Scots Language – the day usually brings some light relief from the hard news.

This year however there appeared to be an unwritten rule among the masses on Twitter that we just weren’t going to celebrate it this year due to the ongoing pandemic and UK-wide lockdown.

Thus, there were very few April Fools to be found on a day when Twitter especially is usually awash with them.

Scottish football clubs St Mirren and St Johnstone attempted to fool their respective supporters with the claim that club mascots had agreed a swap deal.

The tweet read: “St Mirren Football Club can confirm it has agreed a swap deal with @StJohnstone that will see Brogan the Beagle move to Paisley and Paisley Panda head to Perth.

“We're delighted to welcome Brogan to the club.”

The attempt didn’t really get any bites and split opinion among those replying.

Someone who did manage some success while out fishing was Celtic supporter Mel, who shared an image of a supposedly new Celtic strip which had ditched the classic hoops in favour of stripes.

“Stripes, f***ing stripes,” read one reply. “Minging,” added another.

Elsewhere, Rockstar Games got a little more inventive by surprising those who play their blockbuster videos games GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 online by introducing a drastic weather change.

Those logging on today would see their environment exactly how they left it, except blanketed in snow.

You may have thought anything to do with the coronavirus was off-limits, but not for one website which claimed that Nicola Sturgeon was planning on banning alcohol during the lockdown.

However, although the tweet may look at least a little legit, one click would blow the cover and show that the story in fact came from a website called Prank Nation.

That didn’t stop one unsuspecting mother to fall for it, with Twitter user Sara Davidson pointing out that her mum fell for the April Fool.

“Mum just got sent something about Scotland banning alcohol during the pandemic and she’s actually fully just started greeting before a checked it and it’s just an April fools,” she tweeted.

“Honestly this WOMAN the website was called prank mania.”

Finally – and we’ve saved the best for last ¬– while the BBC Scotland said they didn’t have an April Fool for today, they did release this gem from 1991 when they mocked up a news report which claimed that cult TV show Twin Peaks was in the process of being moved to Scotland.

Enjoy.

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