june-2012

Facts
figures +
Numbers, knowledge
and nuggets of go! info
Words: Anna Whitehouse
Illustrations: Sam Vanallemeersch
Man power
1 super hero
His utility belt might not be as nifty
as the comic book version and he
has not fought the Joker, but Zoltan
Kohari is still a Batman of sorts. In the
southern Slovak town of Dunajska
Streda, the 26-year-old wears a DIY,
leather Batman costume – complete
with bat symbol on the chest and
pointy ears. His mission? To clean
the streets of his hometown, help
the elderly with their shopping and
generally keep an eye on suspicious
activity. “I just go around helping, I
suppose,” he said. “Like Batman.”
Hairing off
5 razor strokes
A group of 2,150 Greeks set a new
world record for most people
shaving in one location. The hairy
bunch, who were instructed to
have at least 24 hours of growth,
gathered in a supermarket in
Thessaloniki for the shave-off.
Allowed only five strokes with the
razor, they beat the former record
of 1,868 shavers (who used an
excessive six strokes) that was set
in Mumbai in 2009.
24 Holland Herald
Cut to the chase
75 zombies
Feeling a little sluggish at the gym? A new iPhone
app called Zombies, Run! offers a bit of an adrenalin
boost. Created in Canada, this narrated game has
75 flesh-eating zombies encouraging extra activity.
“It’s hard to speed up your pace on your own,
but not when there’s a zombie chomping at your
heels,” said the app’s co-creator Adrian Hon.
“ Don’t go around saying the
world owes you a living. Th e world
owes you nothing. It was here fi rst”
Hands on
12 cups
Mark Twain
More than 100 people gathered
recently in Tokyo to vie for the title of
Japan’s fastest hands. The competitors
were competing to stack a set of
plastic cups into a pyramid in the
shortest time possible. The winner,
for the fourth year running, was Sota
Takamori, who came in at 1.93 seconds.
Bog off
1,489 peat bogs
GO!
The annual World
Bog Snorkelling
Championships in Wales
requires competitors
to don a snorkel and
flippers and take to one
of the country’s 1,489
peat bogs. The main rule
of the quirky event is to
use a ‘unique’ swimming
technique. In the past,
techniques have included
the ‘crocodile’, where the
competitor used his fore
arms to ‘snap’ his way up
the bog.