More interesting Guinness items

A few months ago, Funfare published interesting items from Guinness World Records 2005 (Special 50th Anniversary edition), a birthday gift to me from Deo Endrinal. Readers have been requesting Funfare for more items. Here are some:

• Smallest waist on a living person

Cathie Jung (of USA), who stands 5’8", has a tiny 15-inch waist. Cathie and husband Bob, an orthopedic surgeon, worked together to develop her tiny waist as part of their enthusiasm for Victorian dress. The 38-year-old mother of three started wearing a six-inch-wide training belt to gradually reduce her waist. Cathie does not eat a special diet or exercise to maintain her waist.

• Fastest $1 billion box office gross

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (New Zealand/USA, 2003), the final installment of the trilogy, took $1 billion at the international box office in just nine weeks, four days after its release on Dec. 17, 2003. It marks only the second film in history to break the billion-dollar barrier, the first being Titanic (USA, 1997), which took the same amount in 11 weeks. The film, starring Orlando Bloom as Legolas, had accumulated a worldwide total of $1,005,380,412 in ticket sales by Feb. 23, 2004.

• Most expensive magic show ever staged

Siegfried and Roy at the Mirage, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, starring the German illusionists Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn, cost over $28 million to stage when it opened on Feb. 1, 1990. The show, which featured dozens of wild animals, including an elephant and a giant fire-breathing mechanical dragon, and a cast of 60, closed after its 5,750th performance on Oct. 3, 2003, after Roy was seriously injured by a white tiger called Montacore.

• Largest illusion ever staged

The largest illusion ever staged was presented by David Copperfield (USA) who created the illusion of vanishing the Statue of Liberty in New York on his fifth television special, The Magic of David Copperfield, aired on CBS in 1983. The illusion was invented by Jim Steinmeyer and constructed by John Gaughan, both of USA.

• Greatest comic-reading nation

In Japan, 40 percent of all printed material sold are Manga comics. Thirteen weekly magazines by the largest publishers, together with 10 biweeklies and about 20 monthlies, represent the core of this industry. Throughout the 1990s, yearly sales of Manga reached an average of 600 billion yen ($5.5 billion), with roughly 60 percent spent on magazines and 40 percent on paperbacks. At any given time at least 10 of these magazines reach sales of one million or more copies per issue. People of all ages read Manga yet currently much of the market is targeted at adults.

• Highest fee per minute for an actor in a TV advertisement

Nicole Kidman (Australia) reportedly earned $3.71 million for acting in a four-minute commercial for Chanel No. 5 in December 2003. This figure represents $928,800 per minute.

• Most tattooed man

Both Tom Leppard (UK) and Lucky Rich (UK) have approximately 99.9 percent of their bodies covered in tattoos. Tom, who resides on the Isle of Skye, Scotland, UK, has opted for a leopard print design, with all the skin between the dark spots tattooed saffron yellow. Lucky Rich has had his existing tattoos blacked over, with white design tattooed on top.

• Most tattooed woman

The world’s most decorated woman is strip artist Krystyne Kolorful (Canada). Tattoos cover 95 percent of her body and took 10 years to complete.

• Most pierced man

Luis Antonio Aguero (Cuba) sports 230 piercings on his body and head. His face alone carries more than 175 rings. The most pierced woman is Elaine Davidson (UK). Between January 1997 and May 2003 she had 1,500 piercings made over her body. Of these, 192 are on her ears, forehead, eyebrows, chin, nose and tongue.

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