UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

If you happen to be in Saudi Arabia, good luck trying to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

It was reported by the BBC on 11th February 2008 that the religious police in that country have banned the sale of any gifts related to Valentine’s Day, and that surely included red roses.

Shop owners have been warned to remove all items red in colour off the displays, including red wrapping paper.

That surely only made red roses highly sought after in the black market.

An alternative for those wishing to celebrate was to go to less strict countries like Bahrain or the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

I wonder if the same reaction would be accorded to mothers day gift ideas red envelope because it seems anything in red and remotely foreign would trigger alarm bells.

Source
The BBC, 11 Feb 2008

Popularity: 1% [?]

These Gong Xi Fa Cai (in Cantonese: Kong Hei Fatt Choy) songs have been around for as long as I can remember, definitely way before I had use for acne treatment creams, so much so that the first few notes would make them instantly recognisable, and there have been innumerable covers.

As far as possible, I have provided links to the lyrics, you can use Google Translate to have a general idea of what they mean.

Yao Li (姚莉) – Gong Xi Gong Xi (恭喜恭喜), with her brother Yao Man; this is perhaps the undisputed most popular Chinese New Year song of all time. Apparently recorded in 1946 in Shanghai with Chen Gexin composing the lyrics, it was not originally intended to be a CNY song, but rather a celebratory tune toasting the end of World War II.

Lyrics.

Wu Ying-yin a.k.a Wu Jianqiu (吳鶯音) – Ta Di Hui Chun (大地回春), which was apparently produced in 1946. The title literally means “welcoming of spring in the big land,” and ode to the “motherland.” She recorded the song when she was 24. She died in 2009.

Lyrics


Zhang Fan (张帆) (a.k.a Li Jinhui) – He Xin Nian (贺新年) [literally: Chinese New Year]

Melody composed by Hou Xiang. Apparently recorded in 1948, when the singer was 26. She died in 2007. Interestingly it’s interspersed with the opening melody of the Christmas song Jingle Bells!

Lyrics

Zhang Yufang a.k.a Grace Chang (葛兰) – Gong Xi Fa Cai (恭喜發財) [Literally: Congratulate You With Prosperity], which was apparently produced in 1956, songwriter: Min Yao (=Yao Min?), lyrics: Li Jun Qing.

Lin Dai and Yan Jun (Chorus) [林黛与严俊 (合唱)] – 拜年 (Happy New Year), apparently produced 1956. The chorus apparently was written even earlier – before 1940. Songwriter: Yan Hua, lyrics: Jinquan.

“White Light” a.k.a Shi Yongfen (白光) – Happy New Year to Wang Xiaoer (向王小二拜年), apparently produced in 1950, when she was 29. This song is even more tightly integrated with the Christmas song Jingle Bells than the other CNY classic, He Xin Nian. She died in 1999. Songwriter: [unknown]; lyrics: Chen Gexin.

Sam Hui (許冠傑) – Cai Shen Dao (财神到), which was apparently produced in 1979. This is one of Sam Hui’s most enduringly popular songs.

Lyrics

Honourable mention

Zhang Lu (张露) – Ying Chun Hua (Mandarin) [迎春花 (国)] [literally: Spring Flowers], apparently recorded in the 1950s

Popularity: 2% [?]

I suppose the ultimate entertainer would be a person who has won as many as possible of the following awards:

- Academy Award (Oscar) – for outstanding achievements in film
- Emmy Award – for outstanding achievements in TV
- Grammy Award – for outstanding achievements in music
- Tony Award - for outstanding achievements in theatre
Note: the 4 above are the 4 major entertainment awards in American show business. A person who has won all four is regarded to have scored the Grand Slam of show business.

As if the above is not enough, I’d throw in the following:
- Nobel Prize - the closest related to entertainment would be “for outstanding contributions in the field of literature.”
- Pulitzer Prize- for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition
- Golden Globe Award – presented by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) to recognize excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign.
- The Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival
- The Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival
- The Palme d’Or (“Golden Palm”) at the Cannes Film Festival
Note: The 3 above, called The Big Three, are the most prestigious film festivals in the world, of which even The Toronto International Film Festival, North America’s most popular and most prestigious, is not part of.

So, has any human ever won all those?

No, not yet.

The closest is Marvin Hamlisch (born 1944), a composer, who has won 3 Oscars, 4 Emmys, 4 Grammys, 1 Tony, 1 Pulitzer and 2 Golden Globes.

Full list:

Academy Awards (Oscars):

1. 1973: Best Music, Original Dramatic Score – The Way We Were
2. 1973: Best Music, Original Song – The Way We Were
3. 1973: Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation – The Sting

Emmy Awards:

1. 1995 : Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music Direction – Barbra Streisand: The Concert
2. 1995 : Outstanding Individual Achievement in Music and Lyrics – Barbra Streisand: The Concert
3. 1999 : Outstanding Music and Lyrics – AFI’s 100 Years… 100 Movies
4. 2001 : Outstanding Music Direction – Timeless: Live in Concert

Grammy Awards:

1. 1974: Song Of The Year – The Way We Were
2. 1974: Best New Artist Of The Year
3. 1974: Best Pop Instrumental Performance – The Entertainer
4. 1974: Album Of Best Original Score Written For A Motion Picture Or A Television Special – The Way We Were

Tony Awards:

1. 1976 : Best Musical Score – A Chorus Line

Pulitzer Prize:

1. 1976: A Chorus Line – Drama

Golden Globe Awards:

1. 1972: Life Is What You Make It – Best Original Song
2. 1974: The Way We Were – Best Original Song

Now, how on earth does one achieve all that in a lifetime? It would be interesting to delve into his family history, how he was brought up etc. At the very least, as a child, for sure he must’ve been surrounded by music and had his vitamins.

Popularity: 1% [?]

UPDATE 12 Feb 2011

Barcelona went all the way to 16 consecutive La Liga victories, the best in Spanish league history, before they were held 1-1 by Sporting Gijon today.

So Benfica’s record of 29 consecutive league victories is still way off.

Next time, to have any hope of catching up on the legendary mark, perhaps Guardiola needs to step up on the guggulsterones diet regime.

———————————

On 23rd January 2011, unstoppable Barcelona won its 14th straight Spanish league match, this time Racing Santander its victims with a 3-0 demolition. That run matched the club record set in 2005-6, and only one victory short of equalling the 15 consecutive league wins of the incomparable Real Madrid side of 1960-61.

Barcelona’s league record now stands at: played 20, won 18, drew 1, lost 1, goals for 64, goals against 11. That means an average of 3.2 goals scored per game.

However, a few days before that, Barcelona’s 28-game unbeaten run in all competitions ended with a defeat to Betis in the Copa del Rey.

For the record, in the English Premier League, the record for the most consecutive wins in the top flight is held by Arsenal, who, between 10 February and 24 August 2002 also recorded 14.

However, these achievements pale in comparison with what Benfica achieved between the 1971-72 and 1972-73 seasons, when it apparently won 29 league matches in a row in Portugals’s Primeira Liga, including 23 consecutive victories in the latter season, in which Benfica completed with 28 wins and 2 draws (total matches then was 30).

In that memorable season, the great Eusébio was Europe’s top scorer with 40 goals, and Benfica scored 101 goals, conceding 13. That means Benfica scored an average of 3.37 goals per game.

Source
soccerlens.com

Popularity: 1% [?]

There are many sites on the net listing the most shocking, banned etc etc music videos. I suppose anybody can look at any so-called controversial music video, then simply top it, so to make things simpler, my criteria for videos to make this list are:

- they must have made all the lists, preferably at the top of the list
- they must have charted in important music charts eg, the US Billboard Hot 100
- totally banned from television

So, ladies and gentlemen, in my humble opinion, the most controversial music videos ever made are…

Nine Inch Nails – Closer
Chart performance: No.41 at the Billboard Hot 100 in 1994
Director: Mark Romanek
Description: Any song that starts with “I wanna f**k you like an animal” surely must have a matchingly interesting video. The video shows images of religion, sexuality, animal cruelty, politics and terror, and seems to be located somewhere inside a pre-20th century lab of a scientist gone cuckoo. Amongst others, viewers are presented with a naked woman with a crucifix mask, a monkey tied to a cross, a pig’s head spinning on an unknown machine, a drawing of a vulva, and Trent Reznor with an S&M mask swinging while in shackles.

The Prodigy – Smack My Bitch Up
Chart performance: No.89 at the Billboard Hot 100 in 1997/1998
Director: Jonas Akerlund
Description: It shows a first-person perspective of a night out in the city, complete with drink-driving, hit-and-run, cocaine snorting, violence, vandalism, nudity and sex with a stripper picked up on the streets. But perhaps the most controversial element is the heroin shoot-up scene which was apparently done for real by the video’s Director of Photography. The ending is perhaps unexpected, as the protagonist is revealed to be a female. After huge demand, MTV relented and showed the video after midnight and after a special warning. In 2002, this video was named “The Most Controversial Video” in MTV’s history.

So now, perhaps the next logical step would be to pick up sony tv reviews with the ultimate aim of viewing these works of art in all their glory.

Honourable mention

Marilyn Manson – (s)AINT (2003)
Chart performance: did not chart, hence does not make the list proper.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer, which took place on 29th July 1981 was generally regarded in superlatives: “fairytale wedding” and “wedding of the century”.

Watched by a global television audience of 750 million (some say 1 billion), it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the wedding gown Diana used should be the most famous that was ever created.

Specs:
- “puff ball meringue”
- made of 6 different fabrics, including 25 yards of silk taffeta, 100 yards of tulle crinoline & 150 yards of netting for the veil alone.
- big puffed sleeves
- frilly neckline
- 25-foot silk train
- not totally white in colour, but rather “off-white ivory”
- more than 10,000 pearls and mother-of-pearl sequins. Hmm…. what that much stuff, they might as well go avant garde and sew in glass mosaic tiles on the external fabric…
- priced at GBP9,000
- designed by then unknown Elizabeth and David Emanuel of London

Now, with another potential “wedding of the century” on the cards, with Prince William and Kate Middleton getting hitched on 29th April 2011, everybody’s waiting with bated breath to see the Kate Middleton Wedding Dress.

It was recently reported that Bruce Oldfield has been appointed its designer.

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Caminito del Rey (The King’s little pathway) is a walkway (via ferrata) pinned along the vertical walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, Málaga, Spain.

It is 1m wide and rises 100m above the river below, and is in a “highly deteriorated state” where there are numerous sections where most of / all of the concrete flooring has simply dropped off. That means there are many huge open gaps connected only by narrow steel beams.

After 2 people died while walking on it in 1999 and 2000, it was closed to visitors by the Spanish government apparently in 2000 but that doesn’t stop crazy people from trying to walk on it.

The following is a video of a crazy man walking the entire length while videoing the feat via a camera apparently attached to his head:

Would you dare?

I think it can be concluded that if he’s that brave on foot, he’d be even more on wheels, goodness knows if he could even persuade auto insurance companies to let him sign on the dotted line.

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Bernama reported on 13th January 2011 that Danbar Tamang, 30 of Nepal, climbed to the top of a 50m tall coconut tree in a village in Bukit Mertajam, Penang at 10.30 pm on 12th January 2011.

Suspicious villagers who saw him tried in vain to coax him to come down.

They were shocked to see his lifeless body, in a sitting position, right at the top of the tree in the morning, 12 hours after he climbed up.

He’d strangled himself with a belt.

Quite how he managed to stay up there without falling off is unclear, probably he’d had a hefty dose of local anti-sleeping pills.

Source

Popularity: 1% [?]

What would you do to show you undying support for your favourite soccer team?

Start a fansite? Buy their merchandise by the truckloads? Never miss watching every single match? Make Old Trafford practically your home?

Well, in 2007, Marin Levidzhev of Bulgaria upped the ante by quite a bit.

He loves the British club so much that he battled the courts for 2 years to have his name changed to what else but…Manchester United.

But the magistrates, being spoilsports, only made him half the man that he should be. They decided that he could only call himself Manchester Levidzhev, because his arguments are “not strong enough.”

I’d say a person who goes so far as to change his name to his favourite football team looks as silly as Lee Haney flexing his muscles while wearing women’s rain boots.

But Mr Levidzhev (Mr United if you want), has not given up yet.

He reportedly said:

I feel as if I am only at the halftime break. I won’t feel right until I get all my name changed to Manchester United. I love the club. It’s my whole life, and I want my name to reflect that.

Source: ananova.com

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IMHO, it happened on 5th November 1983, around 4am, in a decompression chamber of Byford Dolphin, a semi-submersible, column-stabilised drilling rig operated by Dolphin Drilling. It was located in the Frigg gas field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.

A diver aged 34 had just been winched up after a dive and joined to the trunk, left his wet gear in it, then climbed through the trunk into a chamber.

The diver was about to close the door between the trunk and the chamber he entered when, for some reason, one of the divers outside opened a clamp which resulted in explosive decompression of the chamber, from a pressure of 9 atmospheres to 1 in a fraction of a second. A tremendous blast shot from the chamber through the trunk, pushing the bell away.

The diver was shot out through the small jammed hatch door opening, and was ripped apart. Having being exposed to the highest pressure gradient, he violently exploded due to the rapid and massive expansion of internal gases. All of his thoracic and abdominal organs, and even his thoracic spine were ejected, as were all of his limbs. Simultaneously, his remains were expelled through the narrow trunk opening left by the jammed chamber door, less than 60 cm in diameter. Fragments of his body were found scattered about the rig, and one fragment was found at an unexpected place, on the rig’s derrick, 10 m directly above the chambers. Mercifully, his death was most likely instantaneous and painless.

This is a video of an explosive decompression:

The committee investigating the accident concluded it was due to human error on the part of one of the divers outside who opened the clamp. He was also killed.

Source

If one can see photos of the aftermath, not that I could find any, I’d imagine the experience must be a little more unnerving than going through hidroxycut reviews…

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In the early 80s, it was found that Pennsylvania’s state workers had overpaid federal taxes because of some technical mistakes. No matter, it’s just a matter of paying back what was due to each worker. To do that, an accounting company had to be engaged. So a few companies competed for the multimillion-dollar gig.

In 1986, Dwyer, then 47 and the Treasurer of the state of Pennsylvania, was found guilty of getting bribed by one of those companies, as an inducement to getting the contract. He faced the possibility of being jailed 55 years and fined USD300,000.

Throughout his trial and even after, he consistently said that he’s not guilty and that it’s a set up job.

On the morning of 22nd January 1987, one day before his sentencing, he called a press conference.

Looking agitated and nervous, he again said that he’s innocent, and that he wouldn’t resign as state treasurer. He then proceeded to read from a prepared text. After that, he ad-libbed, including the following words:

After many hours of thought and meditation I’ve made a decision that should not be an example to anyone because it is unique to my situation. Last May I told you that after the trial, I would give you the story of the decade. To those of you who are shallow, the events of this morning will be that story. But to those of you with depth and concern the real story will be what I hope and pray results from this morning–in the coming months and years, the development of a true Justice System here in the United States. I am going to die in office in an effort to “…see if the shame[-ful] facts, spread out in all their shame, will not burn through our civic shamelessness and set fire to American pride.” Please tell my story on every radio and television station and in every newspaper and magazine in the U.S. Please leave immediately if you have a weak stomach or mind since I don’t want to cause physical or mental distress… Good bye to you all on the count of 3. Please make sure that the sacrifice of my life is not in vain.

Then he gave out envelopes containing a suicide note, an organ donor card, and some other unspecified documents, including perhaps holiday cards.

After that, he took out a .357 Magnum revolver from another envelope and said “please leave the room if this will offend you.” Some begged him to put the gun down, while others tried to get nearer him, to whom Dwyer said “don’t, don’t, don’t, this will hurt someone.”

Dwyer a few seconds before he died

He then turned the gun towards himself, opened his mouth wide and fired. He collapsed against a wall, blood spurting from his nostrils and head. The audience screamed and cursed.

Dwyer died within seconds.

All this was captured by 5 news videocameras broadcasting live.

Note: I’ve decided that the video is too gruesome to be posted here, google “Budd Dwyer suicide” if you want to see it.

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