These foolish things make the news

Is baby Beckham to get £5m for his biography?

All Fool's Day has brought its usual crop of spurious stories to catch out unwary newspaper readers.

Tall tales include a petrol guzzling environmental scheme supposedly proposed by the gaffe-prone deputy prime minister, a set of slimming socks and a sheep-based advertising project.

The Daily Star produces the only spoof likely to click with internet users - plans to introduce an e-mail stamp to recoup Royal Mail losses.

Meanwhile The Times comments on its feature pages that news stories are now so bizarre it has become impossible to differentiate between hoax and hard reality.

Double dupe

The Sun is the only newspaper to offer a double dupe.

It claims John Prescott is hoping to cut traffic jams by stacking cars on vehicle transporters.

A second story reports a £5m book war for the rights to one-year-old Brooklyn Beckham's autobiography.

Tellingly, the paper quotes publisher April Stirf.

The Sun's sport pages also unveil a pair of hi-tech specs which will allow football referees to zoom into the thick of the action.

Socks appeal

At the Daily Mail, the day's unlikely report focuses on a new way of losing weight.

It reports that slimmers can fight the flab using fat absorbing footwear, Fatsox.

The Telegraph targets a favourite object of ridicule, claiming the Millennium Dome's designers may have taken inspiration from a spider's web.

A device for paging cows at milking times is detailed in the Express.

It says the Call Operated Wireless Pet and Animal Terminal (Cowpat) will create a new generation of armchair farmers.

And, according to the Independent, scientists have also developed a new pill to boost the libido of sexually inadequate pets.