Are you a record breaker? (Wix)
Who doesn’t love a crazy world record story, eh? Like my local kebab shop’s claim to have the world’s tastiest pizza. This despite it having being awarded a hygiene rating of 1/5 by the local council. And despite it specializing in kebabs, not pizza. But damned if I’m going to walk the extra five minutes down the street to an actual pizza shop for my takeaway! Or pay those outrageous delivery charges!
But alas, I digress.
Even the humblest of creatures, however, can hold a world record. In 2012, a four-year-old guinea pig named Truffles entered the Guinness Book of Records for achieving the longest guinea pig jump in history: a fur-raising 48cm (18.9 inches). His secret? A big pile of kale—his favourite snack, no less—was waiting for him on the other side of the great guinea pig divide.
But I’m not here to discuss Truffles and his record-breaking, kale-grabbing leap; his successes are, after all, well documented. Instead, I’m here to discuss an arguably even greater achievement: that of a two-year-old guinea pig named Sir Nutmeg.
Back in the summer of 2014, Sir Nutmeg broke the world record for the fastest guinea pig swim, when he swam a 50ft length—specially cordoned off for the event—of Liddel Water, a river in the Scottish Borders, in the heady time 2 minutes and 34 seconds.
Word has it that Sir Nutmeg broke the existing record—2 minutes and 49 seconds, set by a Californian guinea pig named Candy in 1985—by a pig’s whisper.