There was something fishy in the air when the Express and Echo played a local radio April Fool prank as thousands listened in.

Radio Devon presenter Dominic Busby was caught out live on air by Exeter editor Marc Astley when he came into the studios pretending to be a champion angler.

The joke was payback for all the times Dominic has made fun of local papers for printing pictures of fund-raisers with giant cheques or proud folk who have caught very large fish.

As thousands listened in, Marc, who donned a disguise, soon revealed his identify and presented a bemused Dominic with a wet fish – and a donation to Children in Need — so that he could have the honour of appearing in the kind of photographs he constantly mocks.

The DJ, who was set up by his colleagues, said: “Other people win cars but I’m happy about a dead fish.

“I’m actually going to have to buy a copy of the Echo now rather than just stealing one off work as usual.”

Reporters at the Echo listen to Radio Devon every day and Dominic always talks about the newspaper’s front page.

The radio production team always tries to spot ‘cheque pictures’ with the inevitable line-up of worthies pictured in Devon’s weekly papers.

Marc posed as Marc Bigcatcher who had apparently caught a giant fish in Holsworthy on Sunday.

He said to Dominic: “I think you are simply jealous because you have never appeared in any of these photographs.”

He explained why newspapers use cheque presentation pictures which are very popular with readers.

Afterwards, he said: “Dom and the team were brilliant. His colleague Michael Chequer helped me set up the prank weeks ago and it worked a treat.

“The look on his face was priceless and thanks to the Echo’s new multimedia output, you can see it all on our website.”

Comments

Mark Taylor (03/04/2008 11:22:37)
A bit of a laugh, but I have to say I agree with the DJ. Cheque presentations and big fish pictures do not belong in modern newspapers and are not of interest to readers – merely the self publicising people gioving the cheque.

º¤ø,¸¸,¤ºDAVEº¤ø,¸¸,ø¤º (03/04/2008 11:27:06)
I have to disagree – have you never heard of user-generated content?
Most of those big fish pics (we get them in our local too) are taken by the fishermen themselves with their mobile phones.
It’s the future, the Hull Mail has a whole website dedicated to contributed items.

alexander paterson (18/07/2008 17:27:57)
First class story and all with a great ending,one thing i cant touch is wet fish,and it stinks.