Fingers in a hippo's mouth

The world record for the highest amount of fingers stuck in the mouth of an aroused hippopotamus was set by staff at the Algerian State zoo in May, 2003. The Hippopotamus keeper, Aliah Ammash, said, “We’ve no idea how it got started, but it seemed like every other day someone managed to get their fingers stuck in Trudy’s [the hippopotamus in question] mouth. After a while we started to keep a record of it, but we were astounded when there were as many as 32 people, all with fingers stuck in there!” The zoo has since bought an animatronic hippopotamus mouth to commemorate the achievement. “It’s good, as many people simply do not realise how big a Hippo’s mouth is until they’re stuck in there,” commented Ms. Ammash.

©2008 James Mathurin

Smallest Mass Wedding

The smallest mass wedding was conducted by the Muggy Cult of Lisbon, Portugal in May 2004. The Cult leader, Luis De Stanza, had prophesied 5 years earlier that he would perform 3,000 wedding ceremonies for his followers on that day, but since he only had 7 followers, and 4 of them were men, according to the laws of his religion, he had to marry 3 of the men to the 3 women, and then perform 2,997 ceremonies between himself and the 3 women. When one of the women, Nannetta Costa, left the cult later that year, she sued De Stanza for divorce 999 times, on 1,998 counts of bigamy, bankrupting both him and the cult.
©2008 James Mathurin