Monthly Archives: December 2013

Giant rubber ball: 32 years in the making

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One man and his ball.

One man and his ball.

A social media user has admitted he has spent 32 years working on his hobby – building one of the largest rubber band balls in the world.

Reddit user and sports writer Zack Hample, 35, took to social media to confirm that he had been building the ball since the age of three, and is still working on the huge ball. He posted a photo of the ball, along with two bunches of bananas and a laptop in order to show the scale of the ball, along with the comment: “32 years in the making. Started with just one and, yes, it would bounce if I could lift it.”

The rubber band ball weighs almost the same as two people – around 253lbs – and Mr Hample has said that he has spent almost £920 building it. However, despite his efforts, he has yet to steal the title of the world’s largest rubber band ball, which still belongs to Joel Waul who claimed the title in 2008, according to Guinness World Records.

The ball belonging to Mr Waul weighed more than 9,000lbs and was seven feet tall. He created it from over 700,000 rubber bands and it is now displayed for the public to see at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! museum.

You can view a video of Zack and his pride and joy here.

 

World’s biggest gingerbread house welcomes first visitors

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A basketful of potential inhabitants of the house.

A basketful of potential inhabitants of the house.

A new Guinness World Record has been set by a group of volunteers in Texas, who have worked together to create the largest gingerbread house in the world in order to raise money for charity.

The 21-foot high gingerbread house, located in Bryan, Texas, was constructed by the Traditions Club close to Texas A&M University, with all profits from paying visitors to the house going towards a trauma center at the local St Joseph’s Hospital.

The house has an edible exterior mounted over a wooden frame and covers an area almost the size of a tennis court. To make the house, 816kg of butter, 7,200 eggs, 3,265kg of flour and almost 1,360kg of brown sugar was used, and the structure was then decorated using 22,304 pieces of donated hard candy.

Estimates put the calorie count of the house at almost 36 million calories. “We think big around here and we are competitive,” Bill Horton, general manager of the Traditions Club, told local newspaper reports.

The builders have had one problem with the giant gingerbread house though, as Mr Horton explains: “One problem we did not anticipate was bees on warm days. They have been coming over, getting so much sugar and stumbling around like they are drunk. But no one has gotten stung,” he added.

Big Issue seller becomes first to accept card payments

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Could enterprising Big Issue sellers start changing public perception?

Could enterprising Big Issue sellers start changing public perception?

One Big Issue seller has become the first to accept payments by card, after finding many people wanted to buy an edition of the magazine but did not have any spare change.

The Big Issue gives homeless people the opportunity to earn their own money and Simon Mott, who sells the £2.50 magazine in South Kensington, has to be one of the most enterprising sellers out there. A former London Underground driver, Mr Mott suffered an injury at work which left him unable to work and eventually became homeless. He has since successfully found privately rented accommodation earlier this year.

In a bid to overcome the problems of our increasingly cashless society, Mr Mott, 49, purchased a portable card reader which could be attached to his smartphone, in order to accept payments by card.

“I got a smartphone in April, specifically with the purpose of getting a card reader attachment,” Mr Mott said. “There were many times where people were saying to me, ‘Oh, I’d like to buy the magazine but I haven’t got any change’, or ‘I’ve only got a £20 note'” he said.

Mr Mott hopes to sell at least four copies a week using the new handheld device. He said of the Big Issue: “It is a lifeline. It gives you a sense of purpose.”