The tallest mound of chewing gum

The tallest mound of chewing gum measured 19.35 metres, and was left behind after a thunderstorm in Quebec on April 20^th 1946. Professor Morton Signet, a meteorologist, concluded, “This is a similar sort of phenomenon to rains of frogs, where a freak weather system picks something up, probably from a body of water, and deposits it a great distance away. I am guessing that the moisture and movement within the storm cloud imitated a gigantic mouth, thus chewing the pieces of gum into one object, which was later deposited here in Quebec.” The mound collapsed five days later, killing a local poultry merchant.

Although the area has built up in the intervening years, this traffic sign is effectively used by academics and fans as representing the site of the chewing gum mound. Photograph by Dougtone.

   ©2012 James Mathurin 

The highest political office held by a sleepwalking sleepwalker

The highest political office held by a sleepwalker while sleepwalking was that of Chair of the District Council of Turlington Ohio, which was held by Noel Thursen between October 1976 and June the following year. Thursen only found out he had the position in May of 1977, and decided to step down so that he could attend a sleep clinic to treat his condition. The Mayor of Turlington, Chrissie Swank, told the local newspaper, “Initially we only let Noel keep the position because we were worried of what may happen if we woke him up, but we’ve actually lost a darn good Chairman.”

Noel Thursen(left), pictured with the Turlington District Comptroller, Jackson McKauleigh, discussing sanitation budgets in February 1977. It later transpired that Thursen had been asleep for 7 hours at the time, and was actually wearing his pyjamas under his suit. Photograph by juggernautco.

©2012 James Mathurin 

The Longest time to complete a piece of art

The record for the longest duration taken by one artist to complete a work of art was set by Mizouna Tankard of Battersea, Britain, when he revealed that he had been living under the identity of Gunther DeMousse, a Malaysian immigrant with a clerical job in Hamburg, for the previous 7 years, 4 months and 3 days, and declared his ‘double life’ a piece of performance art.

The blocl of flats where Tankard lived in Battersea between 1996 and 2004. Graffiti that he wrote on the wall of the toilet in the Grove pub, also pictured, has since been put under a protective perspex covering, in order to preserve another aspect of his performance art. Photograph by Ewan-M.

©2012 James Mathurin

Meat-Puppet Restaurant

The Cheshire-Montford Eaterie is a restaurant in Upper Halliford, in Surrey, England. It is owned by Peter Cheshire-Montford, who is the 14th member of the Cheshire-Montford family to own and run the restaurant.

"I never wanted to follow in the family business," he wrote in his autobiography See The Meat Dance in 1985, "But father made my trust fund dependent on assuming the position in his will. Although I had always loved meat, ever since following father lovingly around his favourite charcuterie while we were holidaying in the cottage in France, I had become a keen student of the Dutch master puppeteer Theo Vangerhaus, and had always hoped to be come a practitioner of the noble art of puppeteering. So I said, here's a chance to combine my love of puppetry with my love of meat."

The Cheshire-Montford Eaterie now attracts visitors for its unique way of serving fine meats from around the world: They are cut into the designs of traditional puppets, treated and with organic food colourings to create individual designs, and served in a costume of the customer's choosing.

"Well, it is a little heart-breaking every time one of your creations is consumed," Cheshire-Montford told the Surrey Comet in June 1984, "But I still go to bed each night feeling that I have honoured both of my fathers; he from whose loins I sprung forth, and he who made me the puppeteer I am today."

An arrangement of puppets used by Cheshire-Montford to mount an edible production of the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights for a local children's hospice in 1995. Photograph by rednivaram.

©2012 James Mathurin

The most people ever converted to a religion

The most people ever converted to a religion at one time was 19,020 in August 1934. This was the mainly Hindi population of the island of Trumptuvu, in the Indian Ocean. When the fishing community there learnt that a tidal wave was headed towards their island, a visiting catholic missionary, father Brennan O’Beard sailed out to meet it. O’Beard washed back up on Trumptuvu 2 days later, and announced that he had blessed the wave, declaring that anyone touched by the water was now a Catholic. The islanders accepted this edict out of politeness, but all reconverted back to Hinduism when O’Beard left the island 3 weeks later.

The beach on Trumptuvu, where Father O'Beard returned. One of the villagers, Amitabh Gupta, remembering the mass conversion, said,

"The Priest did nothing to stop the wave. It was not as large as we had been told, and we simply moved our boats to safety, and erected what barriers we could. Truthfully, we were never actually that worried, and we just felt a bit bad that the Priest had gone to that trouble, so we agreed to his offer of conversion, to let him save face."

Photograph by ciamabue.

©2012 James Mathurin

Most restrictive electoral requirements

The most restrictive electoral requirement is found in the English town of Fag End in Derbyshire. No one in the town may become mayor unless they have an allergy to carrots. It is believed that the requirement dates back to an attempt in the 17^th Century to prevent an ‘undesirable’ family of carpenters from being able to hold a position of power in the community.

The official Mayoral cottage, on the High Street in Fag End. Since the "carrot Ordnance" of 1669 was passed, only 5 mayors have assumed the office, and inhabited the cottage. One of those, Samuel Blinkford, mayor between 1752 and 1763 was eventually evicted, when he was tried, according to the official town records, for, 

"beinge of a fraudulente character, specifically in that he did, with mischief aforethought, pretende to be cursed with an intolerance of carrotes, to gain the office of Mayor."

 Photograph by Martin Pettitt.

 ©2012 James Mathurin

The world’s most offensive joke

The world’s most offensive joke was told my comedian Lee Pitton in an audience-participation segment of his stand-up show The Oxtail Soup Monologues in Bradford in 1996. It is illegal to recount the joke, after an emergency UN resolution, but it has since been responsible for an estimated 4 international and diplomatic incidents, 9 riots, 34 deaths and the collapse of 4 national economies. Pitton retired after the joke was connected to a narrowly-averted mass-suicide attempt by the ‘Nashie’ cult movement of Oklahoma, America in 2003.

This photograph was taken in London in 2002, when a recording of Pitton's routine was played at a retirement party at the headquarters of Natwest Bank. The fight that resulted proceeded to spill out into the surrounding area until it had engulfed much of London's 'Square Mile' banking district, and lasted for 17 hours.Photograph by Kashklick.

 ©2012 James Mathurin