The largest scale apology

For 3 months in the Summer of 1864, the Principality of Montenegro carried out what is, in the eyes of most scholars, the largest apology on record. 

During the period of June to August of that year, the lyrics of the national anthem were changed to give an official apology to the Spanish government, for the accidental arrest and execution of their ambassador, Miguel Ballasteros, in March of that year.

With their vulnerability to an attack along their Mediterranean coastline, the Montenegrins made the decision to carry out a daily rendition

This bay was the site of the final apology / anthem, on 17th August 1864. One resident, whose name was given as Igor Tuden, said, "While it hurt my national pride to sing such a shanty, I will miss it." Photograph by k.ivoutin.

  ©2012 James Mathurin 

Another contender for best lie

In 1988, Governor Peter Mintrell, of New Jersey, found himself running for re-election against Cherie Switzler, the prostitute he’d been caught having sex with in the back of his official limousine 3 months previously, the scandal of which had led to the snap election. Mintrell had attempted to play the incident down, claiming at a press conference that he had been forced to sleep with the prostitute because of ‘a hysterical psychological condition she suffers from, which sends her into fits which can only be prevented by sexual intercourse.’ Mintrell, with his wife Sally by his side, further claimed that his limousine had only been in Switzler’s vicinity because his driver, Ernie Ballenti, had taken a detour to pick up a sick relative who lived there, leaving Mintrell alone in the car when he saw Mss. Switzler going in to convulsions.  

“I pulled her into the limousine because I thought she’d have less chance of injuring herself on the leather seats than if I left her on the sidewallk,”

he said, continuing, 

“Once in the limousine, I recognised her symptoms from a Discovery documentary I’d seen the week before, and knew that, no matter how uncomfortable I felt with it, my having sexual intercourse with this young lady may well have been the only way to save her life.”

Switzler entered the election race as an Independent, under the slogan ‘I’ve swallowed a lot of things, but I wouldn’t swallow that story.’ She pulled out of the race when Mintrell offered her a position on his staff.

©2012 James Mathurin 

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