The most and the least

Kenneth Robinson

Guinness B0012 of Records Norris and Ross McWhirter (Guinness Superlatives Ltd £1.70) The Shell Book of Firsts Patrick Robertson (Michael Joseph £3.50)

The Dreamer's Dictionary Stern Robinson and Tom Corbett (Souvenir Press £2.80).

Astrology in the Kitchen Ivor Powell (Hamish Hamilton £2.50) Newcomers to the Guinness Book of Records may think it deals only with unsavoury subjects like cricket, football and athletics. But it does, in fact, include such sophisticated activities as cucumber slicing, gum-boot throwing and spitting.

The record distance for spitting, we are told, is twenty five feet, ten inches. It seems that serious spitters perform in special boots exactly twelve inches long. They wear these so they can walk from where they spat to what the spat, measuring the distance as they go along.

A lot of measuring has been done for the book. We learn, for instance, about the clergyman with the longest incumbency, the opera singer with the biggest cadenza and even the bride and bridegroom who aggregated fourteen feet eight inches on their wedding day.

Most of the information published here could be tossed easily into almost any conversation. Not everyone will know that sneezing releases expelled particles at 103.6 m.p.h. and that President Nixon sent 40,000 Christmas cards in 1969. Or that in the Chinese language the words "hiccough" and "dress" look exactly the same. This could lead to dreadful confusion among men struggling to adjust their hiccough before leaving.

I will not spoil the book for you by giving the details of non-stop talking and rolling-pin throwing. They bring the whole thing too near home. More impressive, I suppose, is the picture of a man standing on a garage holding his hollyhock in both hands, or another of a record-breaker walking backwards to Texas. And if you care for the theatre you may prefer the entry about Charles Hunter, of Rochdale. Mr Hunter says he can get through the "To be or not to be" speech in 7.2 seconds. Very nice too. At that rate we could finish with the whole of Hamlet in half an hour and still have time left to enjoy the evening as well. Patrick Robertson's very readable work, The Shell Book of Firsts, has the sub-title "4,000 Innovations That Have Made Our Modern World." Just imagine that. 4,000 things that have made the world what it is today. Like, for instance, "the invention of the rickshaw by an American baptist minister in 1869." And not forgetting "the introduction of knicker elastic in 1887."

When I got to the knicker elastic I wondered if the man who wrote that sub-title knew what the author was up to. But in his own introduction Mr Robertson says much the same thing. The entries in the book, he says, are about events which have "contributed to life as it is lived today, particularly those that have served to alter society."

So what else has altered society, apart from the rickshaw and knicker elastic? Also listed here are the first disc-jockey, the first chewing gum, the first pop group, the first doggies' beauty parlour, the first weather forecast. And after all that it's nice to be reminded of the first gas chamber.

All this, the publishers tell us, is not only entertaining, but also invaluable for quick reference. Not that everyone would need to

make a quick reference to, say, the date of the first toilet roll or the first doughnut. But the book could certainly be a useful aid to party conversation, with such subjects as potato crisps, invented by a Red Indian chef, and sausages, which were used in making the first telephone. And did you know that the first escalator in Britain was at Harrods, where man waited at the top armed with brandy an° sal volatile? And that the first man accused of speeding in a motor car was overtaken by 3 policeman on a bicycle at eight miles an hour? The item I like best is a reference to the men of the fishing fleet at Portland, Maine. In 1875 they "expressed a desire to enjoy at sea the same Saturday night pleasure as on shore." So their employers put it in cans for them. Their pleasure was, in fact, a plate of baked beans.

The Dreamer's Dictionary is said to explain more than 3,000 of the most common dreams

seems there is a good reason for dreaming about such common objects as, say, a quirt an a kelp. And if you don't happen to know about quirts and kelps you might do well to find out' because the first, when dreamed about, predicts unreliability in a friend, and the second means you must prepare for better times. Even if you do know what a quirt and a kelP look like there seems no logic about the predictions. It's easier to see why dreaming of a bog means "you must persevere." And a dreaal about a spoiled banana? This means disappointment." And it would, wouldn't it Then again, if you dream that your castanets are rattling "you should see a doctor." That seems reasonable enough. Very nasty, rattling castanets.

My favourite interpretation in the entire three thousand is the one safe dream you can have. "A clarinet," says the text, "is instrument that has no meaning in a dream. ' can't imagine why the authors mentioned it at all, but it's a great relief to find we can dream al at least one thing without messing up our private lives. Those who are sceptical about dream theories probably don't believe in astrologY, either. But for the faithful there is a useful Christmas present called Astrology in the Kitchen. It tells us what people should eat to. match their birth signs. For instance, Gethill,,I subjects are "not food-conscious" and show(' he given "trouble-free meals" like peaches in port, rose scented meringues and beef stuffed with uncooked prunes and beaten with a mallet. And for Scorpio subjects, we are told, a romantic affair can be induced by eating the right things. Such as a banana fried in batter, followed by a blancmange with a bay leaf stuck in it. It's a relief to know that "in the right circumstances a ham sandwich and a cup of tea can also light the flames of love." This could be very handy if you can't afford to dip Y04-1„r peaches in port or your banana in batter. might even be worth saving up for a loaf 01 bread. For me the Thought for the Season cohles from this book. It is a thought expressed in little-known words from Florence Nightingale; We all know who said "Let them eat cake." 131-1' Florence Nightingale, it seems, had a more basic philosophy.

"Never," she said, "thicken your gravy."

Kenneth Robinson is well-known as a broadcaster on television and radio