Nowadays I think most people (me included) would need to have "flong" explained to them - or to google it of course: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flong (funny that the Wikipedia article contains a reference to the Guardian hoax).
"The San Serriffe hoax is ranked fifth in the top one hundred April Fool's Hoaxes by the Museum of Hoaxes." One should always be skeptical of an entity calling itself that, of course, but I look back rather wistfully to the days when #10 was an amusing hoax.
"the islands will accelerate at first gently and then more rapidly as they approach Sri Lanka. Simple calculations suggest that the island group will hit the coast of Sri Lanka at a velocity of 940 km an hour on January 3, 2011."
Yes but #11 finally feels within our grasp. One-Door-Closes-and...
ref: http://hoaxes.org/aprilfool/P10
"the islands will accelerate at first gently and then more rapidly as they approach Sri Lanka. Simple calculations suggest that the island group will hit the coast of Sri Lanka at a velocity of 940 km an hour on January 3, 2011."
With a delightfully detailed map (featuring San Serriffe as a neighbour!): https://www.polityka.pl/multimedia/_resource/res/20122854
And a writeup by said map’s author (google translated from Polish): https://jarekkubicki-wordpress-com.translate.goog/2018/01/12...