Fast fruit and poshest penguin in world records

Karsten Maas, from Denmark, makes it into the 2015 Guinness World Records book for creating the world's longest usable golf club

The 60th edition of the world’s most popular book celebrates Scotland’s recordbreakers, such as the world’s highest-ranking penguin.

The latest edition includes details of obscure heroes such as Sir Nils Olav, a male king penguin who holds the rank of colonel-in-chief of the Norwegian Royal Guards and lives at Edinburgh Zoo.

Among the other Scottish entries are the record for the longest-haired domestic cattle – won by the Bos taurus whose average hair length is 35 cm.

The youngest skip to win the world women’s curling championship was Eve Muirhead – who led Scotland to victory aged 22 – and when it comes to the half-marathon, Scotland boasts the fastest mascot dressed as a fruit, in David Hiddleston who completed the Toronto race in 1 hour and  25 minutes.

Edinburgh is also home to Elaine Davidson, the most pierced woman in the world, who has 462 different piercings including 192 on her face.

However, Scotland’s most recent record-breakers are The Kelpies statues, which are the largest horse-head sculptures in the world at 100ft tall.

Yesterday, Craig Glenday, Guinness World Records editor-in-chief said: “This is an important landmark edition, giving us the opportunity to look back at how records have changed over six extraordinary decades.

“Of course, we’ve still had to process 50,000 claims in the past year alone, giving us plenty of new and updated records to choose from and making it a really difficult task to decide what makes the final cut.”

When the book was first published in 1965, the world record price for a bottle of wine was just £8 compared to £60,000 today.

The latest edition of the book includes Nick Bennett, from Lancashire, who officially owns the largest collection of James Bond Memorabillia in the world with 12,463 items which he keeps in a “secret” Bond lair.

Sadly, Brit Stephen Taylor lost the longest tongue record, as his 9.8cm specimen was trumped by Nick Stoeberl from California, whose tongue is 10.1cm.

The new record- holder said his father was a Kiss fan, whose bassist Gene Simmons regularly stuck out his tongue to fans.

Taylor said: “I’m not only able to lick my nose, but also my elbow.”

The world’s longest usable golf club is unlikely to be seen at Gleneagles during the forthcoming Ryder Cup. Karsten Maas, from Denmark, made a club 14ft long and was able to use it to strike a ball 542ft. He said he had not tried to play a full round with it: “The weight and length of the club make striking the ball really exhausting. Plus, I don’t have a caddy.”