Guinness Brews New Record Book

LONDON —  Joe Ponder of Love Valley, N.C., lifted a 606-pound pumpkin 18 inches off the ground--with his teeth.

Jugalchandra Kundu of Calcutta, India, wrote a poem consisting of 437 characters on a single grain of rice in Kalamazoo, Mich.

Antonio Gomes dos Santos of Nazare, Portugal, stood motionless in a shopping center for 15 hours, 2 minutes and 55 seconds.

Once again, people proved they will do anything to get into the Guinness Book of World Records, which published its 1990 edition earlier this month. The 310-page book includes 15,000 records, one-fifth of them new.

Guinness has compiled more than 140,000 records since 1955 when the brewery first published its guide to help settle arguments in the 81,400 pubs in Britain and Ireland.

The book is available in 35 languages, has been the top-selling copyrighted book since 1974, and its global sales passed 60 million in 1988, the brewery said.

Additions to this year’s book include the world’s highest salary, $550 million paid to American “junk bond king” Michael Milken by Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. in 1987, and the most lucrative golden handshake--F. Ross Johnson collected $53.8 million for quitting as RJR Nabisco chairman in February.

Git Kaur Randhawa of Hayes, England, set a record for most attempts at a driving test. She passed on her 48th try after 330 lessons.

The heaviest person alive is T. J. Albert Jackson of Canton, Miss., who tips the scales at 890.6 pounds. He has a 116-inch waist and a 29 1/2-inch neck.

Michael and James Lanier, 20, are the world’s tallest identical twins, each measuring 7-foot-4. At age 14 the boys from Troy, Mich., measured 7-foot-1.

The record for the most marriages in the monogamous world is held by Glynn (Scotty) Wolfe, a former Baptist minister from Blythe, Calif., who has married 27 times since 1927. He believes he is the father of 41 children, Guinness said.

The world’s oldest person is Carrie C. White of Palatka, Fla., who was born Nov. 18, 1874, making her 115 years old, Guinness said.

In sports, Romanian Paula Ivan set a women’s record when she ran a mile in 4 minutes, 15.61 seconds in Nice, France, July 10, 104 years after a man first ran that fast. Javier Sotomayor of Cuba became the first person to break the 8-foot high-jumping barrier when he cleared exactly that height in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 21.

Not all entries came at the choice of the record holders.

Charnoy Thipyasa was sentenced to 141,078 years in prison for swindling millions of dollars from the Thai people.

Guinness said sports endurance marathons will be dropped from subsequent editions because “the quality of play in the activity in question has frequently declined to such a level that it is questionable that the essence of the game is being played at all.”