Happy Easter! Among the chocolate, spring sunshine and boat race, it's a weekend to consider belief, faith and trust. But it's followed hard on the heels of April Fool's Day this year.
The news is regularly challenging our perception of what is true and false at the moment so it was interesting to see how media outlets, entertainment programmes and big brands approached the annual custom of practical jokes and hoaxes, particularly in these difficult and precarious times.
As my mind has been on dogs - with my reading of Simon Garfield's new book (details below) - there was a cute and heartwarming tale of the police engaging the help of our four-legged friends. The South Australian force has launched the Small Area Urban Search And Guided Evacuation dogs here.
We may have been buying more new books in this past year, so a product has been released to remind us of well loved and familiar volumes. Called Papier, the new scent is 'sweet with just a hint of the musty smell of aged paper,' and 'conjures memories of old-school reading with a sprinkling of violets and a dash of tasteful potpourri'. Find out more here.
But I did my first double-take while reading news from the publishing sector. An imprint of HarperCollins announced that it is no longer using punctuation in any of its books or communications, quoting the respected novelist Cormac McCarthy as saying "If you write properly, you shouldn't have to punctuate". The publishing team was led in their decision by researcher Dr Lucas Matthews, whom you can see explaining more here.
Among all these wry tales, though, was a wonderfully amusing and rather lovely enterprise which isn't a one day wonder. Micky the rescue pony has been delivering books to readers in Wiltshire, inspired by the story from Jojo Moyes, 'The Giver of Stars' which featured as my BBC Radio Suffolk read last month. You can find out more about Micky's story here.
Thank you for reading. Happy Easter!