The importance of being foolish

Q: What do you get when you drop a grand piano down a mineshaft?

A: A flat minor.

Pretty funny, right? A flat minor / a flat miner? An oldie, as the saying goes, but a goodie.

Is it good though? Is it even funny? After all, a miner had to be crushed by a falling piano in order for that joke to work. And the mining industry was the backbone of this great nation for decades, isn't it hugely disrespectful to all those generations of working men to wring humour out of large musical instruments falling on their heads?

I'm exaggerating, of course, but am I really doing so to a preposterous extent? As a nation, we seem to be currently undergoing a collective sense of humour failure, making it nigh on impossible to crack a joke, plan a stunt or play a prank due to the very high likelihood that someone somewhere will be offended by it.

Some recent examples of National Amusement Faculty Failure (or NAFF for short, it's a thing I have just invented) would include Bafta Awards presenter Stephen Fry ribbing his friend, the winning costume designer Jenny Beavan, for dressing like a 'bag lady', and being met with the kind of social media response that suggested he'd contemptuously tossed her Bafta at her and caught her squarely on the head; and the clothing chain Zara being forced to withdraw a T-shirt bearing the zippy slogan 'Are you gluten free?' on the front because 53,000 people signed a petition saying it was offensive to coeliac sufferers.

Northern Ireland manager Martin O'Neill, meanwhile, was being excoriated for making a harmless, victimless joke about only inviting good-looking WAGs to Euro 2016.

The problem, of course, is that we live in a culture of complaint right now. It has never been easier to complain publicly (on social media), to become aware of and buy into complaints being made by others (on social media), and to act upon them by setting up the kind of online petition that backed Zara into a corner, and putting it out on social media.

And people will always do something when it's easy. As a result, we now exist in a state of perpetual whinge about something – at the time of writing, for example, people are complaining about Watership Down, and how it was totally unsuitable TV viewing for Easter Sunday afternoon because it involves cartoon rabbits dying. Which means that, off the top of my head, Bambi, Up, Frozen, The Lion King and The Land Before Time should be totally unsuitable too.

Similarly, football fans are up in arms over the snug-fitting nature and colour scheme of the new England football team away kit, despite the fact that, the first time it was worn, the national team came back from two goals down to defeat the world champions, in Germany. Never mind that! It's too tight and the shorts clash with the socks!

All of the above, is the reason why I feel it is very important that we embrace April Fool's Day tomorrow, because it couldn't have come along at a more opportune time.

If ever we collectively needed a chance to unleash our inner twerp, to perform acts of hang-the-consequences tomfoolery, it was now.

Because when I look around and see the outrage being generated by T-shirt slogans and cartoon bunny fatalities, I find myself thinking firstly that any excuse at all to lighten up a little should be embraced like a long-lost friend, and secondly: How long before April Fool's Day itself ends up getting banned?

After all, by its nature, it is exclusionist to certain creeds and cultures, being a pagan ritual that evolved into the Christian European 'Feast Of Fools', and it has become a truism that exclusion is bad, which is why so many schools are scrapping Nativity plays. It's also a health and safety nightmare, unless you work in health and safety, in which case you must feel like all your Christmases have come at once.

Pretty much every physical prank you could hope to play will inevitably be precluded by modern health and safety paranoia.

Whoopee cushion on the chair? Could trigger a panic attack or back spasm. Exploding cigar? Fire hazard. 'Kick me' sign on the back? Might cause somebody to get kicked. Custard pie in the face? Potential blinding, offensive to vegans, and were the eggs used in the custard sourced from free-range hens?

Ten years ago, I'd have not given April Fool's Day a second thought, but in 2016, it strikes me that we need it, because – forgive me for saying it – we've become such a nation of squinnying wet blankets that a dose of enforced anarchy could do us all the world of good.

Indeed, I'd like to go further than simply embracing the spirit of April Fool's Day while it's still technically legal, I'd like to declare April 1st a day when no complaints are made about trivial things, no petitions are started to nip spurious sources of potential offence in the bud, and the wonderfully British attribute of daftness is given full vent.

We can all return to our collective state of perpetual whinge on Saturday, but it may just be that we find we don't actually want to.

Maybe one day of oafishness will trigger a mass realisation that we're getting it all wrong in moaning about every cotton-pickin' thing.