From the cat with the loudest purr to Cambridge’s unicycle-riding juggler: Cambridgeshire’s quirky 2023 Guinness World Record breakers
Two quirky Guinness World Records were broken in Cambridgeshire during 2023.
Bella, a cat from Huntingdon, broke the record for the loudest purr in October.
Measuring 54.6 decibels, the purr was equivalent to the volume of a boiling kettle.
Nicole Spink, Bella’s proud owner, said: “I couldn’t be more thrilled that Bella has broken the world record.
“She has been our family’s companion for many years – we love her to bits and are so proud of her achievement.”
Meanwhile, University of Cambridge student James Cozens became a juggling world record holder on May 7 after honing his skills with performance analysis software that he developed himself.
The engineering PhD student achieved the record for “most objects juggled while riding a unicycle” – juggling seven balls for 16.77 seconds at Selwyn College.
Mr Cozens, from Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, said that drawing on his academic background helped him to improve his technique by developing his own performance analysis software to help jugglers.
“The whole purpose of the software is to provide a juggling analysis… so for me anyway it helped a lot trying to understand my efficiency as a juggler,” said Mr Cozens.
Other bizarre records broken in 2023 included:
Highest altitude stand-up comedy gig: Comedy duo Ellie Gibson and Helen Thorn – better known as the Scummy Mummies – achieved the title when they donned gold catsuits on Mount Everest in March, performing at 17,417ft (5,309m) at Sagarmatha, Solukhumbu, in Nepal to a “chilly audience” of fellow climbers, mountaineers and “bemused” Sherpas.
Identifying the most celebrity birthdays in three minutes: Heidi Crowter, from Coventry, was “very proud” to challenge perceptions about what people with Down’s syndrome can achieve, when she recalled 70 celebrity birth dates in under 180 seconds, ranging from Queen Victoria and Margaret Thatcher to Brad Pitt and Shakira.
Tightest gap driven through by a pick-up truck on two wheels: Stunt driver, Paul Swift, 44, from Northallerton, North Yorkshire, claimed his fourth record after he drove a Ford Raptor between two poles with an average clearance either side of just 44cm at Silverstone.
