DAVID ADAMS writes about the odder side of life…
• A chess piece which stands more than six metres tall – 53 times the standard size – in the US city of St Louis has been officially declared the world’s largest. Members of the World Chess Hall of Fame crafted the chess piece – a king – from African Sapele mahogany – and unveiled it earlier this year at the opening of exhibitions making the 10th anniversary of the city’s chess club and its 10 year role as host of the US and US Women’s Chess Championships.. Guinness World Records have now declared it officially the world’s biggest, beating a record the institution had set earlier with a 4.46 metre tall piece.
• Speaking of records, a three-year-old Indian girl may now hold a new world for shooting the most arrows in a row – 1,111 in three-and-a-half hours. The girl, identified as P Sanjana who lives in Chennai, struck a target located eight metres away with most of the arrows and took a five minute break every hour. She told NDTV: “I am happy. I’ve no pain and I’m not tired. My dream is to win a gold in Olympics.” Details of her feat are being submitted to the Guinness World Records. Meanwhile, in other bizarre records, a teenager from Georgia, Vako Marchelashvili, looks to have set a new world record for completing the most Rubik’s Cubes on a single breath while underwater by solving six in one minute, 44 seconds. The current Guinness World Record is five.
• A burglar left a note in a US church asking for its members to pray for him after stealing $US3,000 of electronic equipment. The man reportedly broke into the Mount Olive AME Zion Church in Waterbury, Connecticut, early last Sunday morning and stole cameras, monitors and a microphone used to broadcast religious services. In a note left at the scene, he wrote “Pray 4 Me!! Sorry brothers. Save me,” and drew a sad face. Congregation members, who asked for the man to return the equipment, did apparently pray for him during their service.
