Guinness World Records 60th anniversary: New records include the world's longest usable golf club and the cat with the biggest leap
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Version 0 of 1. From the world's tallest person to the "fastest time to type a text message while performing head spins," the Guinness World Records have always mixed amazing feats with bizarre stunts. The latest book from the authority on record-breaking achievements celebrates 60 years since Norris and Ross McWhirter were asked to compile a book of facts and figures by Sir Hugh Beaver, then managing director of the Guinness Brewery. Since then the annual book has become an all-time best seller. In 1999, the 2000 edition was printed in a single run of 2,402,000 copies, a record largest single print run for a case-bound book in colour. In 2003, the organisation sold its 100,000,000th copy. With the new edition for 2015 comes yet more incredible new record-holders, some of whom can be seen below. Of course, these are not the weirdest records set during the organisation's 60-year history. Kanchana Ketkaew from Thailand holds the record for the longest time spent living with scorpions. She lived in a 12 metre-squared glass room for 33 days and nights with 5,320 scorpions to keep her company. She was stung 13 times. Next time your flight is delayed at the airport you may want to beat Leslie Tipton's record for the fast time to enter a zipped suitcase. She managed to do it in 5.43 seconds on live television in the USA. And Turkey's Ilker Yilmaz managed to squirted milk from his eye a distance of 279.5 cm or just over nine feet back in 2004. Longest tongue You may have not known it, but the UK lost one of its world records. Britain had held the record for the longest tongue for ten years until Californian Nick Stoeberl appeared with a tongue measuring over 10cm in length. Longest usable golf club The Guinness World Records is a fascinating insight into people's weird hobbies, and German Karsten Maas used his spare time to construct the world's longest golf club at 14ft 5in. It's so long that when he's taken a shot he still needs to swing the club round three times due to the momentum. Longest jump by a cat There's something quite wonderful about the world's longest-jumping domestic cat being a rescue cat called Alley. Samantha Martin, Alley's owner, realised her new cat liked to jump and began to train her up. Alley can now leap an impressive 6ft. Furthest arrow shot on target by the feet Inke Siefker started as a contortionist at the age of 21, and after perfecting her headstand she decided to (naturally) throw a bow and arrow into the upside-down mix. She can now accurately shoot an arrow at a target from 20ft. Loudest bicycle horn At first it sounds bizarre but then you realise that Londoner Yannick Read's inspiration came from the dangerous nature of the capital's roads for cyclists. "The Hornster" packs a mean punch for the small cyclist, emitting a louder noise than any lorry's horn. Largest collection of plastic food Japan's Akiko Obata has over 8,000 plastic food items in her apartment. There's not much more to say. |