..WON'T GET FOOLED AGAIN...............

..So it's Friday, April 1st - April Fools Day here in the Uk - and The Guardian , our newspaper of choice, is bound to run some spoof article........so let's see...............

Ha - straight at you on page two - The Guardian declares that for the sake of the country , hope , optimism and general feel-good factor etc it is going to get behind the Royals and support the upcoming wedding as a Most Excellent Thing , indeed opening up with a 24/7 blog on the couple and following up with reports from Our Special Correspondents and a promise of Commemorative Ceramics.  This most unlikely about-turn is even supported by an editorial article........but you're not fooling me . All very neatly done and most amusing.

Coincidentally, in the same newspaper , buried away somewhere in the Friday review section, was a most interesting article on one Derek Dougan - an icon from the world of midland's football in the seventies - and his love of late sixties music , something I can relate to. It mentioned at length his love of Hendrix , the music scene in general and how, when Wolves were touring in the States in 67, he had frequented the clubs on Sunset Strip and even blagged his way into the Byrd's sessions when the were putting together The Notorious Byrd Brothers.

Respect ; he might not have been my favorite player - I'm a Villa supporter - but at least I had seen him play , and The Byrds for a long time had been my favorite group , my soundtrack to the sixties. I was most most impressed, a most interesting article.

It took me all of eight hours or so to realise that this was another glorious spoof by The Guardian , buried a lot deeper this time ; ok, the clues were there if you looked hard enough, and they even had the grace not to mention it in Saturday's edition and their customary trawl through the previous days wind-ups..........but even so.

Bastards.

So why did I fall for one and not the other ? .....one had at least had the ring of authenticity and the right degree of obscurity ; who was going to read this article other than a music geek who wanted to believe it anyway ?. The other one was up-front and totally implausible .  C'mon , the Guardian supporting the Monarchy ? ....Check out the article on Derek Dougan for yourself at .............

www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/apr/01/derek-dougan-psychedelic

I'm totally and utterly convinced that this is a spoof...........but what if ..........?!!!

.......and The Guardian still remains silent