Danny Baker Record Breaker (5): The World's Itchiest Pants (12 page)

Dear Danny

You can pass on the good news to Jimmy Sedgley that he has broken the world record for Individual Plea Infestation, previously held by American magician and illusionist David
Chill-Blaine. In 2005, Mr Chill-Blaine stood for ten days, sixteen hours, forty-two minutes and eleven seconds, in a locked glass box in Trafalgar Square while 15,941 South Korean Fighting Pleas
nibbled at his body. Amazingly, he didn’t scratch once.

Eventually he was forced to come out when the glass tank he was standing in got so covered in pigeon droppings that no one could see him any more.

Was it a trick? Doctors appointed by the Great Big Book of World Records checked his skin. They found no reason to disqualify him from claiming the record for Individual Plea
Infestation, which Jimmy Sedgley has now broken.

Mr Chill-Blaine does still hold the Plea-induced Itch-resistance world record.

Would you please pass on Jimmy’s certificate and my congratulations!

Best wishes

Eric Bibby

Keeper of the Records

After a breakfast of cockles and bacon, and cheese on toast, Danny and Sally had finished doing the slops and dish mountain for the third day in a row, and stood looking at the
Cool Competition scoreboard. The Gobsmacking Girls were way ahead of the Bonzer Boys.

Danny nodded.
‘And
everyone seems to be getting records, except me.’

‘It
feels
like everyone,’ replied Danny.

They made their way through the woods towards the mudslide area. It was in a narrow, steep valley, and the boys had set up on one side of the stream, the girls on the other.

‘See you at the Supper Sing-song, Dan,’ said Sally, climbing the steep slope towards the girls.

Danny scampered up to join Matthew, who was smoothing a gloopy patch of mud down with his hands.

‘Dippy-dappy-soppy-Sally-ding-dang-dong, Dan!’ said his friend. ‘Did you beat Salty Buttybum at the brekkie slops and dish mountain today?’

‘Silly-Sally-dolly-belly-bong-bang-bing, Matt’ replied Danny. ‘No, she won by a teaspoon.’ He looked at the mudslide. ‘How’s it going?’

‘Pretty good. We’ve got to make a curly-wurly slide that spells out a word, and see how many kids we can get to slide to the last letter,’ explained Matthew. ‘We’re
spelling “gastro-enteritis”.’

Danny looked across the valley at the girls’ effort. It was already longer than the boys’, and had lots of l’s and w’s and y’s in it. ‘That’s not a
proper word.’

‘Vicky says it’s a place in Wales, and she should know, she’s half Welsh.’

‘Which half?’

Matthew shrugged. ‘The top half, I suppose,’ he replied. ‘She can play football, so her legs
must
be English!’

Danny joined in making the slide. When it was complete, the boys took turns to sit on a tea-tray and hurtle down and around the wet, muddy letters. It was great until they got halfway down, when
the tea-tray clunked over a bump, throwing each rider into the shallow stream running along the bottom of the valley.

The girls had planned it better. They had got the angle right and made the mud so slippery that the tea-tray rocketed down the slide, off the end of the word, and skipped along for four or five
metres.

‘Spiffy! The Gobsmacking Girls win again!’ cheered Bunny Grylls. ‘That’s the longest mudslide word I’ve ever seen!’

‘Matt . . .’ called Danny, but his friend had already dashed over to where Vicky stood.

Danny joined the queue to have a go on the girls’ mudslide. He sat down on a rotting fallen tree trunk and soon felt something tickle his ankle. He glanced down and saw a line of ants
hurrying up his trouser leg. There was a nest in the rotting log, and Danny was sitting on top of it!

Danny began to wiggle.

Then he began to squiggle.

Soon he began to jiggle.

‘Mega Ace!’ he laughed.

‘What’s the matter, Danny?’ asked Bush. ‘Have you got ants in your pants?’

‘I think you’re the Cheekiest Scamp in the Camp, young fella!’ said Bush as Danny wiggled, squiggled and jiggled away, furiously scratching his itchy bottom.

Poo-wiggly-wig Adventure Centre

Wales

Dear Mr Bibby

Yesterday, the girls made an Ace mudslide, and spelled out the word:

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.

It was 73.67 m long, and was so greasy and skiddy that everyone managed to get from the first letter to the last! The girls’ leader said it was the longest mudslide word
she had ever seen. Did they break the world record?

Best wishes

Danny Baker

PS I got a few ants in my pants yesterday, but I couldn’t keep them there. When they got a whiff of the Welsh cakes cooking for supper, they were off! What’s the
longest time anyone has ever survived having ants in their pants? I’m going to give it a go!

The Great Big Book
of World Records
London

Dear Danny

I’m delighted to tell you that the girls have broken the world record for Mudslide Lexicography (Mud Writing!) with their fifty-eight-letter attempt.

‘Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch’ smashed the previous record by twenty letters! This was held by thirty-one members of the obscure
Docduc tribe on one of the smaller islands in Papua New Guinea. In 1988 they formed their own Mary Poppins Appreciation Society, in the belief that this magical lady was a goddess who would one day
fly in to their village holding an umbrella, teach them to sing nice songs, and keep their bedrooms tidy.

Inspired by the song with a similar title, they created a mudslide of the word ‘soppycollyfroggylickytickyolliedocious’. Sadly they didn’t know how to
spell the original word, and it lost something in translation. However, it gained something too: four extra letters!