A world record for throwing away money

Finding content for the ‘Curiosities’ section takes us to some weird places.

This week, for example, we learnt that the World Corgi Meetup took place in Lithuania, Finland’s Air Force still flies swastikas on some flags (having apparently missed a pretty important memo), and people are baptising their Labubus. No, like actually, with priests and everything.

But two topics come up more than any others - unusual lottery wins and world record attempts. And this week was a bumper edition.

A Connecticut man known as the "Croc King" collected 3,569 pairs of the shoes, a record he quickly surpassed despite the near guarantee that no one would ever even try to beat it.

Xiaogui, a parrot from China, earned a Guinness World Record for the fastest time to identify 10 colours (by a parrot, not overall).

The Sydney marathon saw 13 records set or broken including for the fastest marathon dressed in a school uniform, as a mechanic, as a glass, in a light military uniform, and as Darth Vader.

No one, though, can beat Daniel Byrnes, who ran the 42km wearing 53 underpants, then removed them all at the finish line to prove his feat.

This all seems suspiciously well timed to mark the 70th anniversary of Guinness World Records. To celebrate the landmark, Guinness launched a Record Selector quiz, matching people with appropriate attempts based on their personalities. 

The Cave was encouraged to try setting the farthest distance to bounce a coin into a cup. It has, so far, lost $28.50. Should have written about the unusual lottery wins.