UNCONVENTIONAL WORLD RECORDS

We’ve seen many of them: Baby On Board, Mum-to-be On Board, Pit Bull On Board, Ultraman On Board and what not.

The best I’ve ever seen is this one:

A close second:

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Gemma Howorth, 27 is probably the world’s top hand model. Her hands are featured in many magazines, including advertising campaigns for Escada, Rimmel and Fairy Liquid, beauty editorials in Vogue and Tatler, puts make up on Supermodels for Max Factor and prepares food for Sainsbury’s.

She was 15 she was scouted by a top London hand model agency.

She gets paid up to GBP2,000 per day to let her hands double for the hands of some of the world’s top celebrities, including Kate Moss, Lily Cole, Lizzie Jager and Natalie Imbruglia.

Kate’s face, Gemma’s hands in a Rimmel London TV advert

What’s so special about her hands: very long nail beds and extremely slender fingers.

Her hands are so important to her job that:
- they are insured for GBP1 million
- she wears white cotton gloves during vacations, on top of the usual sunblock so that it doesn’t get a tan or break nails
- she moisturises them 30 times a day with almond oil
- her husband does the washing up.

According to Ms Howorth, perfect hands for girls should have “long nail beds, with a good length from the tip of the nail to the cuticle. They need nice, straight, long fingers, an even skin tone with hands that are not too chubby or slim.”

As for men, they should have “quite hairless hands and arms. Their skin should be blemish free and their nail beds should be even.”

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The BBC reported on 8th November 2011 that a spot check inside a Mexican prison in Acapulco found that it amazingly had the following:

- 19 prostitutes (not registered as inmates) & 6 female inmates living in the male-only part of the jail
- 160 plasma TVs
- 63 DVD players
- 34 sound systems
- 19 cell phones
- 2 sacks of marijuana (cannabis)
- 100 cockerels for cock fighting
- 2 peacocks
- a few bottles of booze
- knives

Who knows, they might’ve also found Sun Hats in there.

The above were only discovered as the inmates were being prepared for transfer to another jail.

Needless to say, current jail warden Carlos Coronel Avitia was sacked.

Then there was the jail in Sonora (also in Mexico) that inmates had installed with air-conditioning, a refrigerator and DVD player.

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The BBC reported on 8th November 2011 that Anna Grodzka, 57 used to be a man named Krzysztof, before having surgery to become a she in Thailand in 2010.

She became Poland’s first transsexual Member of Parliament, and indeed the first ever transsexual MP in the history of Europe.

At the time of writing she is the only transgender MP in the whole world.

Historically, she is the third transgender MP.

The first was Georgina Bayer of New Zealand (born 1957), who used to be a man named George Bertrand. She was the world’s first openly transsexual mayor, and then later became the world’s first openly transsexual Member of Parliament, from 1999 to 2007. In 1984 she underwent sex reassignment surgery.

The second was Vladimir Luxuria of Italy (born 1965), who used to be a man named Wladimiro Guadagno. She was MP from 2006 to 2008. While she lives as a female, she has not undergone any surgery, hence she’s legally and physically is still a man.

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Dominique Boivin (born 1952) is a French dance choreographer.

His partner is a five-ton excavator – his body gets in touch with the ground, now this is truly dirty dancing.

The machine’s movements are preprogrammed to move in time to classical music, perhaps piped to wireless speakers during performances.

Hence this is a truly bizarre man-machine dance duet.

He’s been promoting the one-of-a-kind show in various places around the world.

The programme notes say:

The dance relives those childhood moments where proportions take on another dimension, and where the street becomes a playground… the dancer meets, greets, and embraces a moving excavator, transforming the stage into a construction site and dance into a tentative balance between nature, man, and machine.

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The Korowai (a.k.a Kolufo) are a people of southeastern Papua (western part of New Guinea island).

Consisting about 3,000 individuals, they were isolated until 1970.

They have been reported to practice ritual cannibalism up to the present day, although this might not be true of clansmen who’ve had frequent contact with outsiders.

The TV show “60 Minutes” was reported to have claimed in 2006 that if someone amongst the Korowai is found guilty of being a “khakhua” (secret witch doctor), he/she is tortured, killed, and finally eaten, with unverified reports claiming that the brain is usually eaten immediately because it tastes best while still warm.

Source
Wikipedia entry on the Korowai people

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Joey has worked for a hotel in Providence, Rhode Island, USA for 3 years when he decided that he’s had enough and wanted to quit.

So he delivered his resignation letter accompanied by a 19-piece carnival band, which promptly started playing when he handed over the letter to his stunned boss.

He recorded the entire thing and posted it on youtube:

Now that’s a spectacular way to resign! With good marketing, the video could well need cd replication by the truckloads.

Other spectacular resignations that made the news included the one in 2010, when flight steward Steven Slater went down his aeroplane’s inflatable emergency chute, but not before taking a few beers along.

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According to Jim Murray’s 2012 Whisky Bible, the World Whisky of the Year is Old Pulteney, a 21-year-old single malt distilled in Scotland.

Jim Murray is a leading whisky expert.

The whisky scored 97.5%, a record-equalling score.

It’s matured in American oak casks and bottled at Pulteney distillery, Wick, Caithness, Scotland.

Murray tried more than 1,200 varieties before he came to his conclusion.

In his own words:

The 21-year-old Old Pulteney absolutely exploded from the glass with vitality, charisma and class. Pulteney doesn’t have the financial muscle of the major whisky barons to market its malts on the global stage. I hope that this award helps one of Scotland’s great unsung distilleries to become discovered around the world.

At 2nd and 3rd place are 2 American bourbons: George T Stagg & Parker’s Heritage Collection Wheated Mash Bill.

Source
The BBC, 23 Oct 2011

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…or “the world’s most mysterious manuscript”.

The Voynich manuscript could very well be the most unreadable book in the world. Created in the early 15th century in possibly northern Italy, it was discovered in 1912 inside a library in Rome.

It is named after the book dealer Wilfrid M. Voynich, who purchased it in 1912.

It has 240 vellum pages of illustrations and written in a language nobody knows. The illustrations seem to be present information about plants and how they might be used for medical reasons, but strangely, most of the plants don’t even exist.

A sample page

No one, even the best cryptographers in the world, has yet managed to decipher the text. These included American and British codebreakers from both World War I and World War II.

In other words, it’s easier to master motorhome repair than understanding the contents of this book.

A sample page

At this point many of us would have dismissed it as a hoax, yet statistical analysis of the writing has shown that the manuscript does seem to follow the basic structure and laws of a real language.

Since 1969, it is owned by the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University, and is formally referred to as “Beinecke MS 408″.

A sample page

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It was reported in October 2011 that a Ford Focus, a family car was subjected to a 120mph (192 kmh) crash test into a solid concrete wall.

The usual crash test speed is a mere 40mph, but the car show Fifth Gear upped the ante 3 times over.

A winch catapulted the car forward, smashing it into the wall, and was destroyed on impact, when in just 60milliseconds, its speed dropped to zero, subjecting the dolls inside to forces of up to 400g.

At the very least, this showed the risks of speeding.

Source
Daily Mail, 24 Oct 2011

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“Smokin’ Joe” Frazier (born January 1944) was a legendary boxer who won Olympic heavyweight boxing gold in 1964, and was undisputed world heavyweight champion between 1970 and 1973, during a time some consider to be the greatest heavyweight era in history, with people like Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Jimmy Ellis, Floyd Patterson, Ken Norton and Earnie Shavers active.

He is best remembered for his 3 epic fights with Muhammad Ali in the 1970s, among the most famous match-ups in all of sporting history, in which Frazier won the first but lost the others.

The first was billed “The Fight of the Century” and took place 8th March 1971 in New York. Both were then undefeated, Frazier at 26-0 and the undisputed wheavyweight champion of the world, and Ali at 31-0. Frazier floored Ali early in the 15th and final round with with his famed left. Ali had been made horizontal for only the 3rd time in his career. Ali got up quickly, but as expected, Frazier won the decision, handing Ali his first ever pro defeat. The fight left both men hospitalised.

The famous final round, both men dead tired, Ali floored at 0:27

The immortal moment

I guess you can say that Frazier deserved to get diamond eternity bands as gifts that day.

The second Frazier-Ali fight took place on 28th January 1974, also in New York. Frazier by then had unexpectedly lost his world title to the other great 1970s boxer, George Foreman (then 37-0) in January 1973 in a match billed “The Sunshine Showdown”. At stake was the right to challenge Foreman, but of course Ali wanted his revenge too. This time Ali won a 12-round decision.

The first round of the Frazier-Foreman fight. 2 minutes in, Foreman floored Frazier, prompting broadcaster Howard Cosell to utter the memorable: “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”. Frazier was knocked down twice more in the last 17 seconds of the opening round. The ref stopped the lopsided fight in the 2nd round, Frazier having been floored an incredible 6 times.

The third Frazier-Ali battle was billed “The Thrilla in Manila” and is often ranked as one of the greatest boxing matchups of the 20th century. It took place 1st October 1975 in where else but Manila. This time it was Ali who was the undisputed world heavyweight champion, having beaten Foreman the previous year.

In the buildup, Ali relentlessly taunted Frazier, most famously by saying “It’s gonna be a thrilla, and a chilla, and a killa, when I get the Gorilla in Manila.” (starting 2:04 in the following video)

During the fight, Frazier’s corner stopped the fight at the end of the 14th due to Frazier’s right eye having swollen shut, despite Frazier himself wanting to continue.

The whole fight

During his career, Frazier lost to only 2 men: Ali and Foreman.

He died at age 67 on 7th November 2011, a month after being diagnosed with liver cancer.

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While the fat paychecks of Hollywood A-list actors/actresses are usually worth it, some of them are grossly overpaid, according to Forbes.

How Forbes arrived at its conclusion:

- take the 40 highest-paid Hollywood movie stars who’ve made at least 3 movies in the last 5 years and have opened in more than 50 cinemas up to 1st May 2011.
- total the production budgets for the 3 films mentioned above
- divide the amount by his/her total salary in the 3 movies, including “back-end” earnings eg, % of ticket sales etc
- compare the end result

At the top of the list is Drew Barrymore.

She has a USD0.40 return on every dollar she’s paid.

Even 2nd placed Eddie Murphy did much better: a USD2.70 return.

Sources:
HitFix & Forbes

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According to Record Collector magazine, it’s the “Capitol executives” cover of The Beatles’ Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album (released 1967).

In it, the original Sgt Pepper collage done by Sir Peter Blake was modified in that the faces of the members of the Fab Four Beatles and other notable figures were replaced with those of executives from Capitol.

It was specially created to celebrate the success of the record, for Christmas of 1967.

It’s now reportedly worth GBP70,000.

Apparently only around 100 were made.

The original

Isn’t it weird that while you’ve might have heard the album many times before, the sight of the CD / vinyl inside a different-than-expected cover makes you want to listen to it again on home theatre systems?

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US-based ArKay looks and tastes like real whisky, but is alcohol-free, reputedly the world’s first. And just like the real tipple, it can be consumed straight, on the rocks or with mixers.

Aimed squarely at the non-alcoholic drinks market, it goes on sale worldwide on 1st December 2011.

That means it’s just in time for the holiday season – then it’s really possible to not “drink and drunk”.

In the UK, it’s sold at GBP4 per can and GBP10 per bottle.

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