In Competition No. 3019 you were invited to submit a limerick describing a feat worthy of inclusion in Guinness World Records.

This assignment is a nod to my nine-year-old son, who is a big fan of astonishing facts. Every year, when he gets his mitts on the latest Guinness World Records, he follows me around the house bombarding me with them. To the records I’ve recently expressed amazement at — most people in a camper van; most basketball slam dunks in a minute by a rabbit; tallest ever domestic cat — you added the feats below, winningly celebrated in limerick form.

Each one printed earns its author £9. Honourable mentions go to Clare Sandy, Jeffrey Aronson, Mike Morrison and Martin Parker. 

Though most Guinness records, it’s said,
Will not last in the days up ahead,
There’s one that is stable:
Cain’s brother, poor Abel,
Will always be ‘Man Longest Dead.’
Robert Schechter

A new Guinness record’s appeared,
And how Edward Lear would have cheered:
Four larks and a hen,
Two owls and a wren;
It’s official — most nests in a beard.
Nicholas Hodgson

An ancient streetwalker called Annie
Collected pound coins in her fanny.
She could fit in no more
Once she’d lodged 84.
It was more of a nook than a cranny.
Fiona Pitt-Kethley

A salt-crusted sailor from Seaton,
In record time (yet to be beaten),
Popped up to the poop
With a gallon of soup
And slurped till the last scrap was eaten.
Alan Millard 

The Member for Grange-Over-Sands
Walked a world-record stretch on his hands,
Saying ‘You folk up there
With your heads in the air
Need to understand grass-root demands.’
W.J. Webster

I’ve had ten thousand partners in passion,
More than three thousand times Cleggy’s  ration
I’m fit as ten fleas
Though I’m weak in the knees
And I can’t do it terrier fashion.

I’m up for inclusion. I’m next,
Though my feat may well leave you perplexed.
Last Tuesday my thumb
Was as taut as a drum
As it tapped out its millionth text.
Bill Greenwell

Could you balance, like Hirst, on an easel,
A drum with ten gallons of diesel?
And on top of the drum
Andrew Marr and a plum,
Four kettles, a shark and a weasel?
Mark Shelton 

A remarkable girl in North Wales
Is endowed with the world’s longest nails.
She could scratch a man’s balls
In Niagara Falls,
Though her sense of decorum prevails.
Rob Young 

A sexy and daring old stager
Took a walk in the buff for a wager
From Llanelli to Hull
Via Plymouth and Mull
And Maidstone and Crewe and Alsager.
G.M. Davis

 A tattooist who lives by the Clyde
Has inked more than his visible hide.
By each nostril and ear,
By his mouth, at the rear,
He has lettered CONTINUED INSIDE.
Chris O’Carroll

There was a young man from Melrose
Whose place in the Records Book shows
That his entry was through
His ability to
Balance six boiled eggs on his nose.
Brian Murdoch

They laughed when, in old-fashioned flannel,
She dived in the cold English Channel.
They confessed they’d been wrong
When she swam to Hong Kong;
Now she sits on the World Records Panel.
Frank Upton

A talented sculptor from Leith
Made statuary out of his teeth.
The top set were nudes,
So to mollify prudes
He carved the disciples beneath.
Basil Ransome-Davies 

If Guinness were anxious to see
Who the pottiest Potus might be
It would just take a sec
For the checkers to check
That honours belong to D.T.
Max Ross 

There was a young lady from Crewe
Who cartwheeled around Chester Zoo,
When the animals saw her
They all rooted for her,
And then began cartwheeling too.
Katie Mallett 

The kindliest soul on the planet
Is a lady in Ramsgate called Janet,
Who knits little pink boots
For the moorhens and coots
In the nearby marshes of Thanet.
Hugh King

No. 3022: a poem for boris

You are invited to compose a safe poem that Boris Johnson could have on hand in case he feels a verse quotation coming on when out in the field. Please email up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by 25 October.