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San Serriffe is a fictional island nation created for April Fool's Day. An elaborate description of the nation, using puns and plays on words relating to typography (such as "serif"), was reported as straight news, apparently fooling many readers who did not understand the joke.

The first version of the hoax appeared in the British newspaper The Guardian on 1 April 1977. A seven-page supplement was published in the style of contemporary reviews of foreign countries, commemorating the tenth anniversary of the island's independence, complete with themed advertisements from major companies. The island was reused for similar hoaxes in 1978, 1980 and 1999.

San Serriffe was one of the most famous and successful hoaxes of recent decades; it has become part of the common cultural heritage of literary humour, and a secondary body of literature has been derived from it. The remainder of the article draws from these many sources.

San Serriffe

San Serriffe is an island nation, also known as Hoaxe, in the southern oceans. The original idea was to have it located near Tenerife but due to the ground collision of two Boeing 747s at Tenerife airport a few days before publication, in the original Guardian newspaper report it was moved to the Indian Ocean, near the Seychelles Islands. Owing to a peculiarity of ocean currents and erosion its exact position does vary. A recent report locating it in the Bering Sea was presumably an error. On April 1 2006 The Guardian reported that San Serriffe is currently floating just off New Zealand's South Island.

Geography

San Serriffe is an archipelago consisting of two main islands and a number of smaller ones. Of the larger islands, the more northerly (the Caissa Superiore or Upper Caisse) is roughly round and the more southerly (the Caissa Inferiore or Lower Caisse) round but with a promontory extending south-westwards from the south-east, at Thirty Point. The two major islands are separated by the Shoals of Adze, dominated by Cap Em. The capital, Bodoni, is in the centre of the Caissa Superiore, and is served by an international airport. It is linked by fast highways to the major ports, including Port Clarendon. However since the rise of the personal computer industry, Arial in the Lower Caisse has acquired increasing importance.

History

Possibly due to its remote and shifting location, the full history of San Serriffe has never been adequately told, but these basic details are known.

• 1421. "Discovered by adventurers recruited by John Street, an English admirer of Henry the Navigator. The crew made their historic landfall in the Shoals of Adze." (Guardian, April 1, 1977)
• 1432 - 1439. Colonized by the Spanish and Portuguese
• 1659. Annexed by Great Britain
• 1815. Ceded to Portugal
• 1824 - 1836. The condominium (meaning uncertain)
• April 1 1967. Independence; a social democratic government takes control.
• June 1967. Colonel Hispalis seizes control
• August 1969. General Minion seizes control
• May 11 1971. General M.-J. Pica assumes responsibility for the government, and subsequently institutes martial law and assumes full dictatorial powers due to "foreign terrorist infiltration". This leads to nationwide protests, escalating into civil war and 23 years of ensuing chaos and anarchy.
• May 12 1997. First general elections.
• September 11 2005. Presidents Imperator Mr. Steven M. Ryckbosch and Mr. Matas J. Tamosiunas are established in office by popular decree.

Ethnic groups

The native people of San Serriffe are the Flong. However the dominant group are of European stock, the descendants of colonists, known as colons. There is also a large mixed-race group, known as semi-colons. In the last available census (1973), as reported in the April 1 1977 Guardian, the population of the island was 1,782,724, with approximately 640,000 colons and semi-colons; 574,000 Flongs; 271,000 Creoles; 117,000 Malaysians; 92,000 Arabs; and 88,000 persons of other ethnic groups.

Government

For many years following independence in 1967, San Serriffe had an autocratic form of government under military strongman General Pica. However, democratic elections were held in 1997. The winner was the charismatic Antonio Bourgeois. He ruled until 2005, when Presidents Imperator Mr. Steven M. Ryckbosch and Mr. Matas J. Tamosiunas were established in office by popular decree.

Culture

Among the cultural highlights of life in San Serriffe are:

• The Cult of the Sonorous Enigma
• The Festival of the Well-Made Play
• The Ampersand String Quartet

The relaxation of the islands' strict anti-pornography laws under the Bourgeois government has led to the publication of a series of risqué novels by Serriffean journalists, collectively referred to as the "Times Nude Romances".

Cuisine

The bitter-sweet swarfega is prepared in various ways to create unique Serriffean dishes, and for this reason the local cuisine lacks the oily characteristic of some related styles.

National bird

The kwote is a member of the guillemot (guillemets) family

Sport

San Serriffe has made little impression on the international sporting world apart from their epic defeat of England at football in 1969. The application of the national Rugby Union team, the Kwotes, to participate in the Rugby Union World Cup 1991 was rejected by a Twickenham official on the grounds that "We don't have any four-figure scoreboards, old boy." However the islands' annual endurance challenge race, involving running, mountain biking, and windsurfing from Cap Em to the German immigrant village of Ems in the Caissa Inferiore (popularly known as the Two Em Dash), now attracts international participants, and it has been some years since it was won by a Serriffean athlete.

References

• Special Report: San Serriffe. The Guardian, 1 April, 1977 (7pp)
• Visit San Serriffe, The Guardian, 1 April, 1978
• Bachaus, Theodore (pseudonym of Henry Morris) (1978). The World's Worst Marbled Papers: Being a collection of ten contemporary San Serriffean marbled papers.... Port Clarendon, San Serriffe: San Serriffe Publishing Co. (but actually Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press).
• Bachaus, Theodore (pseudonym of Henry Morris) (1980). The Private Presses of San Serriffe. Port Clarendon, San Serriffe: San Serriffe Publishing Company (but actually Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press).
• Bachaus, Theodore (pseudonym of Henry Morris) (2001). The Booksellers of San Serriffe. Port Clarendon, San Serriffe: San Serriffe Publishing Company (but actually Newtown, PA: Bird & Bull Press).

External links

• Foolish things, David McKie, The Guardian, 1 April, 2006 explaining how the original hoax came about and the impact it caused
• Some rough guides to San Seriffe, The Guardian, 5 April, 1999
• How young Tony Blair tuned into a new type of politics, The Guardian, 2 April, 1999
• Return to San Serriffe, Berlin Sans, The Guardian, 1 April, 1999
• The leader's rise to power in San Serriffe, Mark Arnold-Forster, The Guardian, 1 April, 1977
• Spiking the cultural roots, Tim Radford, The Guardian, 1 April, 1977

• Vorlage:Wikitravel
• Museum of Hoaxes account of the history of the hoax
• Globo Del Ojo - Tamar Valley Group (Transport in San Serriffe)