All of it eminently sensible
THE GUINNESS Book of World Records has always attracted the weird and the wacky. It reaches a crescendo every year on Guinness World Records Day, and last week more than 200 000 people took part, hoping to make it. Among the feats:
· In Gloucestershire, England, pensioner Thomas Lackey broke his existing record as the world's oldest wing walker by flying 500 feet above the ground, strapped to the wing of an aircraft.
· In London, American Ashrita Furman broke the world record for the heaviest shoes by walking 10 metres at Tower Bridge in shoes weighing a total of 146.5kg.
· In Paris, can-can girls at the Moulin Rouge produced the most high kicks ever in a single 30-second chorus line.
· Also in Paris, Anatol and Monika Stykan - a male and female balancing act - broke the world record for the most stairs climbed while balancing a person on the head - on the steps of Sacre Coeur Basilica.
· In New York, 400 dogs put on cowboy hats, tiaras, T-shirts and ponchos to clinch an entry as the largest-ever convention of pooches in fancy dress.
Other records toppled included the largest painting by numbers, the world's largest shoe (a canvas trainer, Size 845) and the most concrete blocks broken whilst holding a raw egg.
Well, that's what the rest of the world was doing. Very sensible. We've yet to learn what Julius Malema was up to.
Chuggalug
AN AUSTRALIAN brewery has offered a free beer to every adult citizen in the country, should the national cricket side win back the Ashes from England in the series which begins this week.
The free beers – offered by Foster's Lager - would become available through vouchers printed in the newspapers countrywide.
This might seem the ultimate in cricketing patriotism, the start of a party reaching from Botany Bay to Beyond the Black Stump.
Yet the exercise would cost about A$20 million. Maybe Foster's believe they're on safe ground.
Flag splendour
BRITISH prime minister David Cameron was interviewed on TV over Nato and Afghanistan. Standing in the corner in the background was a Union Jack.
When did the Brits adopt this American practice of displaying the national flag indoors on such occasions?
We adopted it in the days of PW Botha. Every government office suddenly had its flag, every desk had its miniature. The practice is still going strong today.
It recalls the words of the Chinese sage who inspired the title of Evelyn Waugh's novel, Put Out More Flags.
"A drunk military man should order gallons and put up more flags in order to increase his military splendour."
This is not to suggest that Cameron was squiffy drunk on TV. But, having scrapped the Ark Royal, maybe he does need to boost the military splendour a bit.
Banister
SOME truisms on the banister of life:
· The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in the bathroom.
· I hate sex in the movies. Tried it once. The seat folded up, the drink spilled and that ice, well it really chilled the mood.
· It used to be only death and taxation. Now, of course, there's shipping and handling too.
Tailpiece
A MARRIED couple in their early 60s are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in a quiet, romantic little restaurant. Suddenly a tiny, beautiful fairy appears on their table. She says: "For being such an exemplary married couple and for being loving to each other for all this time, I will grant you each a wish."
The wife says: "Oh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband."
The fairy waves her magic wand and - poof! - two tickets for the Queen Mary appear in her hands.
The husband thinks for a moment: "Well, this is all very romantic, but an opportunity like this will never come again. I'm sorry my love, but my wish is to have a wife 30 years younger than me."
The wife and the fairy are deeply disappointed, but a wish is a wish. So the fairy waves her magic wand and - poof! - the husband is 92 years old.
Moral: Men who are ungrateful bastards should remember that fairies are female.
Last word
What we call "Progress" is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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