Matthew nodded. ‘Yeah, I’ll have a go. It’ll take me a few days though.’
‘That’s OK. Today we’re going to put these flippers to good use and try to break another record.’
‘Just you and me?’
‘No, all the Sea Squirts – the more we have flipping, the better.’
Danny and Matthew approached the corner of Tempest Road. The Sports Centre stood at the top, right opposite the Crumbly Crunch biscuit factory. It was time for a quick game of Guess What Biscuit Is Baking Today.
‘Chocolate bourbons,’ predicted Danny.
‘Ginger nuts,’ guessed Matthew.
As they turned the corner, the smell of baking biscuits wafted to them on the breeze. Danny and Matthew sniffed deeply.
‘Custard creams!’ they laughed, and made their way down the road to the Sports Centre.
Dear Mr Bibby
Yesterday, twenty-one kids from my swimming club, the Penleydale Sea Squirts, tried to break a record. We all lined up at the shallow end of the pool, and at my signal everyone flipped their flippers at the same time.
A small ripple rolled down the pool, hit the wall at the far end, and bounced back. As it reached us we flipped again and made the ripple bigger.
Each time it came back to us we flipped, and each time the wave got bigger and faster. With one final flip at exactly the right moment, we created a huge monster of a wave.
It was Ace! The water crashed over the far end, swept through the doors of the girls’ changing rooms, then out across the reception area and into Tempest Road. Natalie said we were being childish and wouldn’t join in. She was in the changing rooms as the wave passed through. It picked her up, carried her outside and dumped her on the pavement. She wasn’t pleased.
The water travelled 354 m before running out of steam just before the zebra crossing near the Post Office.
Matthew found out that the pool holds 562,500 litres of water. If you take away the 26,373 litres of water left behind after the wave, this means that we managed to empty 536,127 litres of water from pool.
Are we the Swimming Pool Emptying Champions of the World?
Best wishes
Danny Baker
PS I’ve got a verruca. My dad told me he once had five on one foot and two on the other, at the same time! What’s the world record for having the most verrucas? I can’t try to break the record, because Mum’s covered my toe in Verrucablaster! cream. She says verrucas are banned when our new baby arrives.
Dear Danny
I’m sorry, but the Penleydale Sea Squirts are not record breakers. The record for Collective Empty of a Swimming Pool by Simultaneous Flipper-action is held by thirty-three members of the Freemantle Flipper-Floppers Formation Water-dancing Team, of Freemanle, Austalia.
On 24 December 1996 they displaced 1,967,852 litres of water from their pool. The Team Coach asked them to do it because his glass eye had dropped out into the water and no one could find it. The plan worked and the Flipper-floppers eventually discovered the glass eye starting up at them from the bottom of the deep end.
Bad luck with your record attempt, Danny. I hope the other children in the Sea Squirts won’t be too disappointed. It sounds like you all had fun!
In answer to your second question, the world record for Most Verrucas is 993, held by Lars von Doinker, of Molde in Norway. He has size seventeen feet, so has lots of room to grow them. Mr von Doinker believes that verrucas are an alien life form, come to take over the world foot by foot, that he is their leader.
So if you want to save the world, keep using the Verrucablaster! cream!
Best wishes
Eric Bibby
Keeper of the Records
Danny pulled on his waterproof tracksuit bottoms, gathered the material together just above his left ankle, twisted the cloth tightly, and tied it in a firm knot. He repeated the procedure with his right trouser leg and then walked round to the side of the house where Dad kept the hosepipe.
Danny pushed the end of the hose into the top of his trousers, and Matthew turned on the tap. Cold water gushed in and the trousers ballooned out, tight and taut, like two big blue sausages.
Danny gasped. ‘Why couldn’t we use warm water?’
‘Because I read that swimming records are more likely to get broken if the pool water’s cold,’ replied Matthew. ‘So, it might be the same with Water-filled-trousers Land-speed Dashing.’
‘If you say so, Matt,’ said Danny. ‘But I’ve got goosebumps on my legs as big as gobstoppers!’
Danny tightened the belt around his waist and walked towards the front of the house. His legs were heavy with the weight of water, and he had to swing each one forward to move. Thin trickles leaked from the trouser bottoms and seeped into his trainers.
Matthew had measured out fifty metres of pavement and placed flags at each end. He checked his stopwatch as Danny took up position at the end of the street.
‘On your marks . . . get set . . . go!’
Danny shuffled stiffly down the street, trying to get his running-rhythm right. As he passed the finish line, Matthew stopped the watch and read the display: 51.26 seconds.
‘I can do better than that!’ said Danny, gasping for air.
He got his breath back and prepared to do a second run. This time, he cut his time to 38.91 seconds.
‘I can go faster,’ he puffed. ‘One more try.’
‘Go!’ called Matthew, and Danny got off to a great start, really picking up speed. This was going to be the fastest run, he could tell.
Suddenly, about twenty metres into the dash, Natalie and her best friends Kaylie and Kylie rushed down the garden path and surrounded him. They each had a pair of nail clippers, and held them up for Danny to see.
‘Noooooooooooooooo!’ wailed Danny, as he realized what they were about to do.
The three girls attacked Danny’s trousers with the nail clippers, snipping dozens of tiny holes in the fabric. Thin spurts of water shot from the little punctures and in moments Danny’s trouser legs were leaking like a sieve.
‘That’s for dropping jelly on me and spoiling my hair!’ shouted Kaylie.
‘That’s for putting jelly in my sleeping bag and making me blotchy!’ yelled Kylie.
‘And that’s for . . . everything!’ shrieked Natalie. ‘You should be happy – now you’ve got world-record-breaking leaky pants!’
The girls retreated into the house, cackling like witches.
‘Matt, I’ve been ambushed!’ cried Danny, standing in a steadily growing puddle of water. ‘Get the sticky tape, quick!’
Dear Mr Bibby
Natalie and her friends sabotaged my attempt on the Water-filled-trousers Land-speed Dash record, by puncturing my pants. My best speed was only 4.626 km/h before they got me, and I know this isn’t even close to the record. When I’ve mended the pants, I’ll have another go. I might even attempt the Water-filled-trousers Long-distance Dawdle record. I’ll just do it as far away from Nats as possible. How far do I need to dawdle to be a record breaker?
Best wishes
Dany Baker
Dear Danny
That was a good try – 4.626 km/h is fast for a Water-filled-trousers Land-speed Dash, but the record is held by Deng Dong of Hong Kong, who reached 15.3km/h wearing specially made aerodynamic dash-pants.
The record for Water-filled-trousers Long-distance Dawdling is humongous. It is held by Tebogo Selepeng of Botswana, who dawdled the entire 1,750-km length of the Limpopo River in Africa. It took him 191 days.
Dawdling at night because it was cooler, Tebogo topped up his trousers from the edge of the river. When he reached the end of his gargantuan trek, his pants were swarming with tadpoles of the Lesser-spotted Limpopo Trouser Frog. This tiny amphibian was thought to be extinct because its spawn can only hatch in the trousers of fisherman who wade into the water, and nowadays the local fishermen always use boats.
As Tebogo paddled into the river to release the tadpoles from his trousers, he discovered why th
e fishermen use boats – he and all the tadpoles in his pants were gobbled up by a huge hungry crocodile. Now, both Tebogo Selepeng and the Lesser-spotted Limpopo Trouser Frog are definitely extinct.
Best wishes
Eric Bibby
Keeper of the Records
Danny and Matthew leaned into the gusting wind as they walked into town, heading for the Sports Centre.
‘This weather’s perfect for flying a kite,’ said Danny.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Matthew. ‘Let’s go up to Miggin’s Mop this afternoon. You could try for the Highest Kite-flying world record.’
Danny shook his head. ‘Not today. I’m going to stay in the pool until closing-time. Now that you’ve made the Wrinkleometer, I want to have a go at the Whole-body Skin-wrinkles world record.’
They approached the top of Tempest Road.
‘Cow biscuits?’ wondered Danny.
‘Garibaldis?’ suggested Matthew.
The boys rounded the corner and sucked the gorgeous smell from the biscuit factory up their nostrils.
‘Oaty bobnobs!’
Once inside the Sports Centre, they got changed and entered the pool. Matthew kept walking towards the Deep End, to be with the strong swimmers and big kids. Danny remained at the shallow end, where the weak swimmers and the little kids were. His white, rubbery Verrucablaster! Containment Sock squeezed his left foot uncomfortably.
Danny lowered himself into the cold water, took a deep breath and swam a slow but determined width across the pool.
‘Well done, kiddo!’ shouted Trevor, the instructor. ‘You’re getting better every week.’
Danny kept glancing over at Matthew and Natalie as the good swimmers practised their racing dives. He wanted to join them so much.
Natalie noticed Danny looking. She stuck her tongue out at him, then made fun of his swimming by pretending to doggy-paddle.
That did it: he had to Cross The Line and swim to The Grid.
Danny launched himself from the end of the pool and began to swim towards the Deep End. As he reached halfway, he sensed the deep water below him and started to panic. His head went under the surface and he came up spluttering and coughing.
The end of a long white pole appeared in front of him and Danny grabbed it gratefully. From the edge of the pool, Trevor guided him back to the shallow water.
‘Good try, kiddo,’ he said. ‘Have a rest and stay down this end. I don’t want to have to rescue you a second time.’
Danny stood in the water at the side of the pool and got his breath back.
Matthew swam over to him. ‘Hey, Dan, guess what I’ve just heard? Tiggy Jenkins told me that our flipper-wave washed all the sticky gloop out of the plugholes in the girls’ showers. The caretaker shovelled it into a big pile and it’s still there! Tiggy’s sister said it’s gross!’
‘Ace!’ replied Danny, cheering up at once. ‘Let’s go and take a look!’
The boys climbed out of the pool and sauntered casually towards the entrance of the girls’ changing rooms. Danny took a quick glance over his shoulder, checking that no one had noticed them.
‘Now!’ he said, darting through the door.
A horrible sight was waiting for them. The glistening black mass of slimy, hairy goo lurked in a dark corner by the lockers, like an alien killer blob.
‘Ace,’ breathed Danny.
‘Cool,’ agreed Matthew.
Danny examined it closely. ‘This stuff’s just what I need to make my woolly-mammoth model for history.’
He searched around for something to scoop it into, and his eyes fell on Natalie’s spare swimming cap sticking out of her backpack.
‘Perfect!’
Danny filled the cap with dollops of the greasy plughole gloop. Just then, they heard the shrill ‘peep’ of Trevor’s whistle.
‘Come on!’ urged Matthew. ‘We’ve got to go back before they notice we’ve gone!’
Danny shoved the bulging hat into a large pocket of Natalie’s bag and zipped it up quickly.
‘I’ll get it out later,’ said Danny as the boys hurried out of the girls’ changing room. He jumped back into the water. ‘I’m going to hang around here for the rest of the day and get wrinkly.’
Matthew smiled. ‘I’ll come back around teatime with the Wrinkleometer at the ready!’
Dear Mr Bibby
Last Sunday I stayed almost all day in the shallow end of Penleydale Pool. I only got out to have a wee. I’d have stayed in even longer, but Mum sent Natalie to drag me out because my tea was ready.
By then, my whole body was like a big white prune. I’ve seen lots of prunes, because my Grandma Florrie eats them every day to keep her Regular, whatever that means.
Matthew had made a Wrinkleometer to work out my Skin-wrinkle Index.
The deepest and longest wrinkle he found started on my belly, stretched around my side, carried on over my bottom, down my left leg and stopped just above my left knee.
He used the Wrinkle-length Wheel Attachment to measure the wrinkle, and it was 91 cm long.
Then he used the Wrinkle-depth Dipstick Attachment, and found the wrinkle was 3.9 cm deep at one point.
The crinkliest wrinkle was under my chin. It was only 16.5 cm long, but when Matthew used the Wrinkle-crinkle Gauge, he said it had seven crinkles per centimetre, making 115.5 crinkles per wrinkle.
I had 574 separate wrinkles on my body.
Matthew worked out that my Skin-wrinkle Index was 367.
It took nearly one and a half hours to make all these measurements. My tea went cold, Mum says I’m grounded for a week (except for football practice), and I’ve got a really bad cold from sitting in the water so long.
Was it all worth it? Are my wrinkles the wrinkliest, crinkliest ever?
Best wishes
Danny Baker
Dear Danny
I’m sorry to tell you that you’ve missed again! It was an excellent attempt, but the world’s wrinkliest person is Thelma McCurdie, of Kissimmee, Florida – the same Thelma McCurdie who holds the world records for the biggest and spottiest bottom!
Embarrassed by all the attention given to her vast behind when she broke those records, Thelma went on a crash diet to make it smaller. Unfortunately, while she lost all the fat, she didn’t lose the skin. After a year of living on just celery and water, Thelma’s whole body looked like a huge, deflated hot-air balloon.
Her longest single wrinkle went five times around her body, and measured 36.43 m.
Her crinkliest wrinkle had 2,973 crinkles per wrinkle.
Her Skin-wrinkle Index was a massive 3,769!
Her deepest wrinkle was 35.6 cm deep.
A team of specially trained officers from the Great Big Book of World Records went to check Thelma out. When they began to use the Wrinkle-dept Dipstick Attachment of the Wrinkleometer, in the deep folds of skin, they discovered:
A family hamster (two adults and five babies)
Three jelly beans
A baseball mitt
A French dictionary
Two sticks of half-eaten celery
A bunch of the keys
and . . .
A three-month-old TV guide
Yours was a brave attempt, Danny, but you could never compete with Thelma’s tent-sized torso. I hope your cold gets better soon.
Best wishes
Eric Bibby
Keeper of the Records
Danny and Matthew were just leaving home to play the Tootleby Tomahawks in the Penleydale Cup when, from her bedroom, Natalie let out a horrible, blood-curdling scream.
Dad ran from the living room and bounded up the stairs. Danny and Matthew followed him.
Mum rushed out of the bathroom.
‘Don’t scream like that, Natalie!’ she said. ‘The shock made the baby jump in my bump!’
‘There’s a big black furry thing in my backpack!’ cried Natalie.
The boys looked guiltily at each other.
‘I forgot to take out the hairy gloop!’ whispered
Danny.
Dad went into the spare room. He returned wearing his motorcycle helmet and goalkeeping gloves, and wielding a cricket bat.
‘Stand back,’ he ordered, striding into Natalie’s bedroom.
‘Er . . . Dad . . .’
‘Hush, Danny!’ hissed his father, raising the bat above his head like a Samurai warrior.
‘But, Dad, it’s just a hatful of plughole gloop.’
‘What?’ spluttered his sister.
‘From the drains at the swimming pool.’
‘Mum!’ yelled Natalie. ‘Tell him!’
She made a lunge for Danny’s ears, but the boys were too quick. They fled down the stairs and out of the house.
The World's Loudest Armpit Fart Page 4