The guinness book of records 2009

Guinness World Records Book 2009
The 54th edition of the Guinness World Records book has been released. In the 2009 version we can find a few interesting world records such as:

The World’s Oldest Bridesmaid (105 years old)

The Most Expensive Ice-cream Sundae (£12,000)

The World’s Longest Dog, with a nose to tail length of 2m 32cm (7.61 feet)

Oldest living person (114 years and 115 days - Edna Parker, US)

Largest underwater press conference (61 journalists)

Most rotations hanging from a power drill (141)

Worlds fastest talker (655 words per minute)

Fastest suitcase escape (7.04 seconds)

Oldest DNA (800,000 years)

Many of the records in the book were set on last year’s Guinness World Records Day (November 9) when 200,000 people around the world joined in to make or break records as part of the international event.

Amazing feats

Reuben Williams (UK) unwrapped and ate five Ferrero Rocher chocolates in one minute at De Hems in Soho, London, UK, on 30 November 2007.

The fastest time to run 100 m barefoot on ice is 17.35 s set by Nico Surings (Netherlands) at the Ijssportcentrum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, on December 8, 2006.

The fastest time to eat a 12" pizza is 2 min 19.91 s by Tom Waes (Belgium) in Ghent, Belgium on December 2, 2006.

The fastest time to carve a face into a pumpkin is 24.03 second, by Stephen Clarke (USA), who broke his previous record on July 23, 2006 at Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida.

Vincent Pilkington of Cootehill, County Cavan, Republic of Ireland, plucked a turkey in 1 minute 30 seconds on November 17, 1980. Vincent is so enthusiastic about his skills that he even carried out 24 hours of turkey plucking to raise funds for his local Holy Family School. In this time he plucked 244 turkeys.

Michel Lotito (aka Monsieur Mangetout) from Grenoble, France, has been eating metal and glass since 1959. Gastroenterologists have described his ability to consume 900 g (2 lb) of metal per day as "unique". Mangetout - Michel's nickname - literally translates as "eats everything". Michel says bananas and hard-boiled eggs make him sick.

Ken Edwards of Glossop, Derbyshire, England ate 36 cockroaches in one minute on the set of The Big Breakfast, London, England on March 5, 2001. In Australia there is an annual Cockroach Racing Championship. The winning roach scoops a top prize of $500.

The record for the most sheep shorn manually with scissors/handblade in 8 hours is 50 by Janos Marton of Hungary. Marton completed his challenge, without any breaks, on April 26, 2003.

Using a computer and four blank keyboards, and without looking at the screen, Michele Santelia (Italy) typed backwards 64 books (3,361,851 words, 19,549,382 characters) in their original languages including The Odyssey, Macbeth, The Vulgate Bible and the Guinness World Records Book 2002. Michele put together a 3,78 m high tower of the books typed. He completed typing backwards the volumes of the Dead Sea scrolls in Ancient Hebrew on 26 July 2007.

A team sponsored by the Sunday Times has set a new record for driving a car through the narrowest gap. In a 2006 Vauxhall Astra VXR, driver Terry Grant (UK) drove on two wheels through a gap 68 cm wider than the height of the car, at the Santa Pod Raceway, Wellingborough, UK, on 17 October 2006.