...IN THE GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS BOOK!

Guinness World Records is all about extremes.  From the highest to the lowest.  From the fastest to the slowest.  We chronicle them all.  50,000 letters a year yield a wonderful world of wanna-be superlatives.  Some get there, some don't.  From the sublime to the ridiculous.  It's a wonder we can keep up.  And yet we do.  We chronicle as many as we can in the book.  The Guinness World Records book.

A look through its pages is a veritable feast for stats fans.  And endless source of material for those looking for party pieces.  It's as insane as it is epic.  A universe of names, places, dates and digits.  A true testament to the spontaneity and reinvention of the human race.  I sometimes wonder what would emerge if we could package all the emotions contained in its pages.  A cornucopia of highs and lows?  A pandora's box of thrills and spills?  A shopping bag full of high-end happiest moments ever?

Norris McWhirter, one of our founding editors, once said that everything needs a context.  Every high must have its low.  Every top must have its bottom.  Our youngest must have their oldest.  And there is no older...scratch that...there has never been anyone older than Madame Jeanne Louise Calment - the Oldest Human Being Ever.  On August 4 1997, just over 12 years ago, Calment passed away in Arles, France.  Born on February 21 1875, a year before Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, she was 122 years 164 days old when she died.  That's 44,724 days of living on this little blue planet (which, coincidentally, is over 4.5 billion years old).

Wow.

Jeanne Louise Calment aged 20 in 1895:

Jeanne Louise Calment aged 121 in 1996:

Stuart Claxton aged 37 in 2009:

I guess you can really say no-one ever lived a fuller life than Jeanne Louise, and if you don't believe me check this out:

• She lived in Arles, France, for her entire life, and outlived both her daughter and grandson
• Her older brother, François, lived to the age of 97, her father to 93, and her mother to 86
• Her husband died in 1942 after eating a dessert prepared with spoiled cherries
• She met Vincent Van Gogh in 1888, as a 13-year-old girl in her uncle's fabric shop, where he wanted to buy some canvas, later describing him as "dirty, badly dressed and disagreeable", and "very ugly, ungracious, impolite, sick"
• She watched the Eiffel Tower being built
• In 1956, Calment appeared in the short promotional film Vincent Van Gogh: Darkness Into Light, produced by MGM to promote Lust for Life. In the short film, Calment talks with star Kirk Douglas about meeting Van Gogh when she was 13
• At the age of 114, she appeared briefly in the 1990 film Vincent and Me as herself, making her the oldest actress ever
• In 1996, to celebrate her 121st birthday, a record company released Time's Mistress, a four-track CD of her speaking over a background of rap and hip hop - how cool is that!
• She occasionally smoked until the age of 117, only five years before her death, finally giving up at the age of 119 years (blindness made it difficult for her to light a cigarette)
• When asked for her prescription for a long life, she mentioned garlic, vegetables, cigarettes, and red wine. On another occasion, she said her longevity and relatively youthful appearance for her age was due to olive oil, which she said she poured on all her food and rubbed onto her skin, as well as a diet of port wine, and nearly 1 kilo of chocolate eaten every week
• Calment is the oldest person known to have survived a hip operation

The Guinness World Record for Oldest Man Ever is held by Shigechiyo Izumi (Japan) of Isen on Tokunoshima, an island 1,320 km (820 miles) south-west of Tokyo who lived until he was 120 years 237 days.  He was born at Isen on 29 June 1865 and was recorded as a 6-year-old in Japan's first census of 1871. He died at 12:15 GMT on 21 February 1986 after developing pneumonia.

The current Guinness World Record for Oldest Living Woman is held by Gertrude Baines (b. 6 April 1894, Georgia, USA)  who was 114 years 327 days old, as of 27 February 2009. 

The current Guinness World Record for Oldest Living Man is held by Walter Breuning, who was born 21 September 1896, he claimed the title on 2 January 2009, aged 112 years 101 days.   

God bless them all!