Joey Chestnut claims burrito eating crown Competitive eater Joey Chestnut - long the man to beat in the field of eating lots of hot dogs very quickly - has now also become the king of burrito-eating.
Chestnut, also known as 'Jaws,' managed to swallow an impressive 47 burritos in just 10 minutes on Saturday - easily beating the previous record of 33½ burritos in the same time.
Chestnut is best-known for his hot-dog eating prowess, which this year saw him triumph in the annual Fourth of July hot dog eating contest in New York's Coney Island for the fourth year in a row.
Chestnut walked off with $1,500 (about £972) for his victory at the New Mexico State Fair in Albuquerque, an event sanctioned by the Major League Eating & International Federation of Competitive Eating, the world body that oversees all international professional eating contests..
The burritos in the Garcia's World Burrito Eating Championship were stuffed with beef, beans and the state's (apparently) famous green chile.
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The first story in this thread is about him... he's got the dedication required to be a WINNER!
World's Largest Artwork
Etched onto the surface of Lake Baikal, this snow and ice drawing is the world's single largest artwork, stretching out to a total area of over nine square miles. The project took land artist Jim Denevan and his team of eight people 15 days to complete. Using the frozen black ice beneath the white snow as a canvas, Jim and his team used snow ploughs for the enormous circular lines and shovels for the smallest 18-inch circumference lines, Jim designed his pattern using a mathematical fibonacci curve and 'drew' his creation before the team began using a bike, which he rode around lining his artwork into the snow
Swallow, the world's smallest cow, takes place in record books A cow from Yorkshire who measures just 33inches high has been officially crowned the world's smallest cow by Guinness World Records.
Swallow, the world's smallest cow (she's the one on the right, obviously) has taken her place in the new Guinness Book of World Records Swallow, the world's smallest cow (she's the one on the right, obviously) has taken her place in the new Guinness Book of World Records
Swallow the cow, who hails from Rishworth, West Yorkshire, measures a titchy 0.8m (33inches) from hind to foot eanring her a place in the new book of Guinness World Records 2011.
Swallow's delighted owner, Caroline Ryder, said: 'Celebrity does not sit that well on Swallow's shoulders. She'll spend the day where she's happiest, in the middle of the herd grazing, or in the cowshed listening to Radio 2, her station of choice.'
Swallow is just one of the British entrants in the new Guinness book - with others UK-based record breakers including Stephen Parkes of Nottingham, who scooped the record for the largest collection of Smurf memorabilia in the world; Stephen Buttler of the West Midlands, who broke the record for the Most Push Ups with Claps in One Minute by completed 73 push ups with a clap in sixty seconds; and Scot Patrick Rielly, who claimed the record for Most Football Management Rejection Letters, having been turned down for the manager's role at 46 different professional football clubs.
Fastest mobility scooter in the world can hit 69mph A plumber has built the fastest mobility scooter in the world - which whizzes along at an incredible 69mph.
Colin Furze, 31, spent nearly three months converting the machine which has a powerful 125cc motorbike engine hidden under the seat, five gears and twin exhausts. The petrol-powered super scooter, which is British racing green, can almost reach the national speed limit and keep up with cars on the motorway. It does 10 miles to the gallon and is nearly NINE times faster than an average mobility scooter which glides along at just 8mph.
'It is quite scary when I'm driving it fast as the frame is pretty flimsy and designed for going along at slow speeds," said Colin, from Stamford, Lincs. 'You can't take your eyes off the road when driving it as any rash steering decisions could make it flip over and the slightest dip or bump in the road makes it drift off course.'
Colin decided to transform the scooter after he was given the machine by a friend. He was determined to build the fastest mobility scooter in the world and applied to Guinness to set the record as there wasn't one already in place.
Swiss finish world's longest tunnel Tunnel through the Alps is hailed as an environmental triumph as it will shift freight traffic from road to rail.
15 Oct 2010
aljazeera.net
The drilling of the world's longest tunnel has been completed in the Swiss Alps, clearing the path for a high-speed railway which will connect northern and southeastern Europe and shift lorry freight onto rail. After 15 years of construction work, the 9.5-metre wide drilling machine bore through the last strip of rock on Friday, joining two ends of the 57km Gotthard Base tunnel about 2,000 metres under a mountain.
The event, attended by 200 dignitaries, was broadcast live on Swiss television and watched by European Union transport ministers at a meeting in Luxembourg. "Here, in the heart of the Swiss Alps, one of the biggest environmental projects on the continent has become reality," Moritz Leuenberger, the Swiss transport minister, said. Tunnel workers paid tribute to their colleagues who had died on the construction site with a minute's silence as the names of the eight victims were read out.
The tunnel is being hailed as an environmental triumph as much as an unprecedented engineering feat. It is part of a larger project to shift the haulage of goods from roads to rails, spurred mainly by a concern that heavy lorries are destroying Switzerland's pristine Alpine landscape.
About 1.2 million lorries currently move through Switzerland's mountainous countryside every year, harming rare plants and animals due to exhaust fumes while adding to the erosion of the Alps. The aim is to halve the traffic within two years from the tunnel's opening. Swiss voters, who are paying more than $1,300 each to fund the project, approved its construction in a series of referendums almost 20 years ago and will have to wait several more before it is ready for rail traffic.
When it is opened for traffic in 2017, passengers will ultimately be able to speed from the Italian city of Milan to Zurich in Switzerland in less than three hours and further north into Germany, cutting the journey time by an hour.
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Now that's an impressive tunnel-bore! Remember the one for the Channel Tunnel? Two blokes shaking hands through a gap!
Feast Your Eyes On World's Biggest Choc Bar
Andy Jack,
Sky News Online
October 17, 2010
Chocoholics read on - the world's largest bar of chocolate has been created in Armenia. Called Grand Candy, it measured more than five metres long and took three days to make. It weighed in at a massive four tonnes and 410kg.
The bar gave Armenia its first Guinness world record and led to a huge celebration. Afterwards, the chocolate was cut into pieces and shared out among the public. Statisticians reckon if one Armenian ate 40kg of chocolate a year it would take 107 years for them to eat the giant bar.
The previous record was held by Italian chocolatiers.
Librarian enters the Guinness Book of Records for collecting 22.1 grams of 'belly button fluff ' over TWENTY-SIX years
24th October 2010
As hobbies go, it's not something you are likely to share with too many friend on the grounds of good taste. But that's not a problem for librarian Graham Barker who is celebrating being recognised by the Guinness Book of Records - for collecting 'belly button fluff.'
He has saved 22.1 grams of lint - after 'harvesting' it every day for 26 years and has even considered stuffing a cushion with his bizarre collection. The 45-year-old plucks the 'fluff' while he waits for his shower to warm up.The colour depends on what towel Graham uses. He said:'The whole process only takes about ten seconds and has become automatic - I don't need to devote much time or attention to it.'
Graham first began his record-breaking collection when he was bored one evening. 'I noticed the lint in my navel and became curious as to how much of it one person can produce,' he said. 'I decided the only way to find out was to collect it for a while and see. I had an empty film canister with me which became a perfect receptacle. That's all there was to it - no obsession or grand plan, just simple curiosity.'
Graham said the amount of fluff he collects each day depends on what clothes he has been wearing - with thermal underwear being the most 'productive'. He added: 'I found that having a shower tends to wash away any lint, so the logical time to collect is just before getting in the shower each evening. I turn on the taps then pluck and store while waiting for the water to heat up.'
The daily harvests are stored in a little clay pot specially made for collecting navel lint and at the end of each year the small amount is added to his main collection. It never goes mouldy and does not smell, which means lint from 20 years ago is 'indistinguishable' from the new stuff.
Graham has now sold three of his large jars to a museum for an undisclosed sum and is a quarter of the way to filling the fourth. He said: 'The raw material is worthless but as a unique world record collection and a piece of cultural heritage, of debatable merit, it has some curiosity value. The overwhelming majority of people have a positive reaction. They are amused or surprised that such a collection exists. A few, usually women, recoil in mock horror, thinking that lint from a navel is really gross.
'And some think I must have too much time on my hands, which always strikes me as an illogical thing to say about a habit which only occupies ten seconds per day. A small minority with no sense of humour just don't get it and express their opinion with rude words.' Graham, an Australian from Perth, knows a few other navel fluff collectors but rarely talks to people about his odd hobby.
He said: 'Collecting is not a big part of my life so I generally don't talk about it or ask others about it. When I ran a navel lint survey many years ago a handful of respondents, who were all men, confessed to having saved up some of their lint at some point. But none had continued with it. One guy might have persisted, but he got married and his wife ordered him to stop.' Graham hopes to fill another five jars before he stops collecting and believes there is little chance of his record being beaten.
He said: 'I will stop collecting when I'm no longer physically capable. Collecting lint costs nothing and takes almost no time or effort so there is no compelling reason to stop. In fact most days my lint collecting gets as much conscious thought as other routine tasks like putting on socks. I wouldn't call it an addiction because it's not something I feel any need to do. If my belly stopped producing lint tomorrow I might feel surprised but not disappointed.'
Graham has also collected stamps, bakery bags and McDonalds tray liners.
J-awesome! Man's massive mouth is proclaimed the widest in the world
A man who can fit a whole can of pop in his jaws sideways has been recognised as having a world-record sized mouth.
Francisco Domingo Joaquim's 6.69 inches wide rubbery yap has earned him the bizarre title of the 'World's Widest Mouth' by the Guinness Book of World Records.
The 20-year-old, who is also known as the Angolan Jaw of Awe, put his elastic skills to the test at the the 'Big Mouth' competition in Rome this month.
So that's where it is: Francisco Domingo Joaquim from Sambizanga in Angola has been awarded the dubious title of World's Widest Mouth, by the Guinness Book of World Records
Contestants crammed their cake holes with a whole host of items including saucers, coffee cups and beer bottles but nobody's mouth could beat Francisco and his can of coke.
He shot to stardom performing his jaw-dropping talent on the streets of Luanda, capital of Angola, and even performed on an Italian TV show, popping a can in and out of his mouth 14 times in one minute.
Francisco, known as Chiquinho, and his unique talent was discovered by Guinness Book of World Record researchers scouring YouTube.
After two years of searching, they tracked him down to his hometown in Angola.
Since then Francisco has become an Internet sensation with his videos racking up thousands of hits.
Joaquim said it was a 'dream come true' to be honoured by Guinness World Records.
What a big-mouth: The 20-year-old's rubber mouth measures a jaw-dropping 6.69 inches
World's biggest bottle of wine created, world's biggest wine glass to follow Anybody want to share a bottle of red? A group of Chinese winemakers have claimed the new world record for the world's biggest ever bottle of wine.
The 15ft high bottle contains an astonishing 1,850 litres of wine, produced by Wang Chen Wines in Liaoning, northern China. That's over three times the amount held by the previous record-holders, Austrian winemakers Kracher, whose bottle held 490 litres of Grande Cuvee TBA NV No.7 2005.
'We are very proud, and the wine is very good. We have all had a glass from the bottle to celebrate,' said a company spokesman.
World's largest wine glass unveiled in Lebanon The world's largest wine glass has been unveiled in Lebanon, blowing Portugal's previous 1998 record out of the water.
Dozens of visitors at a wine festival in Beirut's Hippodrome looked on as the giant receptacle, measuring 94.48 inches in height and 65 inches in diameter, was revealed.
An adjudicator from the Guinness Book of World Records then confirmed that the plexiglass vessel, created by engineers Walid Richa and Moussa Zakharia, is indeed the world's biggest. 'The previous record was set in Portugal 12 years ago and I’m proud to announce that Lebanon has achieved a new record,' remarked Liz Smith.
Organisers of the wine festival proceeded to pour around 100 bottles of Lebanese wine into the giant glass, mixing up a tasty cocktail of red, white and rosé varieties. Even with dozens of bottles poured into it, however, the size of the glass meant it was still barely a quarter full.
In recent years, Lebanon has also laid claim to the world’s biggest servings of kibbeh and tabbouleh - traditional meat and salad dishes - and the largest bowl of hummus. The planet's previous record-holding wine receptacle, for anyone wondering, measured 59.44 inches in height and 57.48 inches at its widest point.
World's smallest car the 'Wind Up' built by British constructor Perry Watkins has assembled officially the world's smallest licensed car - and it has a top speed of 60kph.
At just 41 inches high, 51 inches long and a seemingly impossible 26 inches wide, the miniscule motor is in danger of being overpowered by other vehicles on the road. But Mr Watkins has made sure that his 'Wind Up' mini car has enough power to compete with the larger cars, with a top speed of 60kph (37mph).
Though it may not be enough to hold its own on the German autobahns, the car features seat belts and has a few flames licking the side of the car, for added 'cool factor'. The body comes from a repainted children's ride, while the chassis is borrowed from a Shanghai Shenke quad bike. Meanwhile, the tyres are more regularly seen on Monkey motorcycles.
This isn't the first time that Mr Watkins has devised a strange vehicle, after his 'Flatmobile' was unveiled a couple of years ago. It stood at just 19 inches high and could reach speeds of 100mph.
The car will be shown off at a motoring show in Essen, Germany, on November 27.
Novice angler catches monster halibut worth £25,000 Gunther Hansel, a Veteran angler, has landed the catch of his life – a record-breaking halibut weighing 220kg (34st)
Hansel took more than two hours to reel in the 2.5m (8ft 2in) monster of the deep off Bolungarvik, in Iceland’s Western Fjords, where it took five men to eventually haul the 970-portion fish on board.
‘This is the fish I have been fishing for all my life,’ said the 70-year-old German. He used a 30lb line and a plastic lure to snare the halibut. Once he got it alongside their boat, a rope was tied around its tail so it could be hoisted on to the deck.
Herbert Loechel, managing director of the fishing tour operator, said: ‘After the bite, we had to worry that Gunther would land the fish. It took him 135 minutes. But the boat’s crew helped hoist the giant fish, with more anglers on board to help, on to the boat. Back at port, the giant fish was celebrated vigorously.’
The mighty fish has broken all records – beating the previous best by 8.2kg (18lb). The earlier record was held by anglers Bosse Carlsson and Hans-Olov Nilsson, weighing 210kg (464lb), caught off Norway in July 2009.
Atlantic halibut are native to the northern Atlantic ocean, from Greenland to the Barents Sea and as far south as the Bay of Biscay. They can reach up to 5m (15ft) in length, weigh up to 320kg (700lb) and can live for 50 years. Commercial fishing of the Atlantic variety has largely collapsed since overfishing led to it being registered as endangered in 1996.
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