Is it a record?

Hats have to come off to people who are better at something than anybody else in the entire world, especially that bloke who can wear 247 hats at once. 

It'll catch on, probably

Running faster, jumping higher, throwing pointy things further than any other human on the planet has to earn respect on some level. Some people however, are so desperate to be world record holders, they start doing things no one has thought of doing before. This can be the only explanation for the man who holds the record for the most number of clothes pegs on his face. He can’t have been that bored. You can picture the scene; he’s been out for a daytime stroll in the park with his dog, Gert, and comes home to make a nice ham and cheese sandwich to eat while he gets stuck into his book, ‘The Brogues of Bournemouth’. 

I never forget a face - especially one with peg marks all over it

He starts to get a bit bored and so decides to go and hang the washing out. While pinning a pair of pants to the line he uses two of the three pegs in his hand. He pauses, stares at the peg, his eyes widen and then he decides to take the whole peg bag in the house with him. The only thing that could have planted the seed in his head that trying to get all the pegs from the bag on his face is the rousing desire to rise above and be championed as the king of all peg-faces. Getting his name into the book of world records for at least one year until everyone else in the world with a bigger face cottons on to the fact they accepted this ludicrous pass-time as a record and manages one more peg than the first bloke to do it. There must also be an independent body who got involved to set the minimum size that the peg can be in such a record attempt. This is to stop people putting microscopic pegs on their face.

As soon as impressionable kids see this man on television with pegs all over his face (something for which he will never be famous, as no one will recognise him without them), their inner desire to be the best and impress their friends will seize them. They’ll rush into the kitchen and start putting pegs on their faces, realising that their face isn’t springy or large enough and instead try prawns, corkscrews and grains of rice. They’ll then start searching the house for random items they can either attach to their body or place in orifices. All of a sudden you’ll hear little Timmy shout, “I’m going to see how many duvets I can get on my face”. This will be followed by the thunder of feet up the stairs and the careful tramping back down a few minutes later while saying (muffled), “One, and a rather snazzy Halloween costume it makes too!”.

World record holder and malevolent manifestation of evil on earth

Then there are those who feel they must demonstrate their powers of human endurance, resilience and in some cases supernatural power. I once saw a man rest his neck on a samurai sword while someone hit him over the head with a big flat hammer. How do you find out you can do this? How do you schedule such a thing into your day? Do martial artists wake in the morning thinking “I need to pay my credit card bill, do the washing up, vacuum, buy milk, put my neck on a sword and get my neighbour to hit me with large hammer, wrap my sister’s birthday present (if I’m still alive), skyplus Eastenders, leave my shoe on a village green and a glove on a railing, scream out of car window at someone at bus stop then cook my tea” . Also, it was cool(ish) when David Blaine hung in a glass box for several days, only because it was David Blaine who did it. If it was say, Ali Bongo, the record attempt would have had slightly less credibility.

I am in a glass box of emotion

There are obviously some records that you can’t break just by trying hard, such as being Japan’s biggest horse or world’s tallest man. Others are just a matter of opinion such as Crufts and the music charts. Wet Wet Wet were at number one in the UK singles chart for 15 weeks with “Love is all around” , which doesn’t mean it’s the best song ever written. Although it’s probably better financially to be number one for fifteen weeks than to be the record holder for the world’s biggest eye-lids.

Graffiti and the voice of one

The course of history has been shaped by that one voice that is louder and generally higher-pitched than the rest. That voice, brave enough to call its own tune, to spread an alternative view on the way things are and how they should be.

It was with disappointment though that I heard such a voice waste its opportunity to say something that may just have altered the direction of so many lives or even a country on the brink of a quadruple-dip recession. I was driving along a busy road and glanced up at a passing road sign to determine which exit I should take at the encroaching roundabout when I noticed some graffiti sprayed in the corner. An opportunity had been recognised and snatched with both hands, I thought. Thousands of people must pass this sign every day and a large percentage of them must glance up and read it.   All of those people would read the graffiti and if poignant or philosophical enough, could change the ways of those who are changeable. Someone with something to say had an opportunity to spread a message of solidarity, peace, love or even a way to get your jeans clean after a jam related accident.

A sign of the times

The bringer of this message decided however not to risk their life, spraying a message 8 feet from the ground near a busy road to try and change lives though they did interrupt their daily schedule and make a special effort to bring a can of spray paint and a small step ladder with them to present the passing public with their message which in fact was the word “poo” in red lower-case letters.

Either this person got up there and forgot what they were going to write and sprayed the first thing that came into their head in a “many people in cars watching me” induced panic or they actually planned it and that “poo” is indeed what is going on in their head, preventing them from sleeping at night and driving them to buy red spray paint in order to let the world know of their personal torment.

It is conceivable that the ‘artist’ was sitting in the house one night and Eastenders finished leaving an empty to-do list. It was a toss up between learning Spanish using the CD they got free with the Sunday paper or going out and spraying ‘poo’ on a road sign; the ‘poo’ clearly being the most worthwhile of the two.

I also came across some graffiti which said ‘I. Woultham is a nonce’ written in red paint on a bridge. A few yards down the road from the bridge I noticed exactly the same message written in black marker pen on a fence. It got me wondering whether there were a group of artists each armed with a different method of writing on public property or if someone was working alone carrying a rucksack full of differing stationery.

I was at a bus stop one night; a car passed with the passenger window wound down and a teenager leaning out screaming what sounded like ‘Wooyah’ in a troubled tone. Again, I wonder if once Eastenders had finished, they glanced at their to-do list which included ‘leave a random item of clothing on a public bridle-way’ , ‘put a glove on a park railing’ , ‘spray the word ‘poo’ on a road sign, and  ‘scream at people standing at bus stops’.

There must also be another group of people who fall into the ‘extreme graffiti artists’ category. Not content with extreme ironing, which involves leaping out of aeroplanes with an iron, a board and some particularly crinkled clothing or extreme gardening which involves jumping out of an aeroplane with a trowel in one hand, a fork in the other and your mate with a window box fixed to the top of his helmet, these people attempt to graffiti in the most dangerous places known to man.

People of the valley, I must be heard

I’ve often looked up at railway bridges with graffiti on the sides and wondered how they got up there to do it. You must have something particularly weighty on your mind to contemplate hiring some scaffolding, a crane and an array of cans of neon-bright spray paint. Invariably though, they always end up spraying something like ‘Bazza was ‘ere 97’ , which definitely goes a long way towards bringing about harmony in the modern world.

The ‘poo’ sprayed by this wise academic could well have been a comment on the state of public transport under the coalition government, or perhaps an indictment on the quality of road signs.