JOE RILEY AND THE APRIL FOOL'S DAY BRIDGE OF SIGHS...

THE craven Echo's self-styled controversial columnist Joe Riley has been getting into more hot water.

You will recall that Riley survived, (thanks to the blog going public with it, eds) demands from 'Randy' Paul Newman to be sacked for dozing off during Jimmy McGovern's boring play.

But now Riley, affectionately known as Mr Bumble by scribes at Trinity Mirror, has put his foot in it again.

The craven Echo, which is world famous for its ready wit and erudition as well as its campaigning and investigative journalism, decided to play a little April Fools Day prank on its loyal readers.

So those wacky full-of-fun madcap lads and lasses from the management team huddled together in a corner and came up with a brilliant and oh-so-humorous wheeze.

"I know," they said, "why don't we make up a story about a new bridge across the Mersey to the Isle of Man? That will have them all in stitches in Anfield."

So after the pranksters fought each other for the honour of making this proposal to EDITOR, Ali Mackray, the go-ahead was given.

The story duly appeared on April 1st.

Millions of readers guffawed their heads off and some were actually taken to Fazakerley because their sides had split open so much.

Oh how we laughed, especially since the story was identical to the 14,356 other Echo stories which have appeared throughout the last ten years, giving free publicity to any insane, no-hope-in-hell-chance-of-it-ever-happening scheme dreamed up by some property developer/speculator/cowboy on the back of a fag packet after two many G&Ts.

But there was one exception to the universal, almost hysterical, amusement caused by the article.

Step forward Mr Bumble.

Our Joe had not been included in the April 1st loop by those wise-cracking, playful Echo executives.

And he took serious umbrage at the madcap plan.

So much so, that he penned one of his distinctive semi-hysterical rants about the scheme for the next's day's Echo.

It was only an eagle-eyed sub-editor who was designing Riley's column, (shurely some mistake? eds) who spotted that Joe had been taken in by the wheeze.

And that the penny had never dropped with him - despite the laughter which had coursed through the Old Hall Street sanatorium like a raging torrent whenever the EDITOR was around.

Some lackey was then deputed to gently break the news to the bumbling Mr Bumble that the bridge story was a spoof.

Mr Bumble's florid chops were, apparently, even redder than usual, when he found out.

Meanwhile, come the revolution, we plan to take out the eagle eyed-sub editor and have him shot at dawn.

If only he had stayed schtum!