LONDON – WHATEVER, MR. VERSATILITY!

After a Canadian intern turned her insides upside-down in search of a world record we asked our UK interns why they weren’t as committed. They came back with this.

Ashrita Furman (born Keith Furman) happens to be the guy who holds the Escherian record for holding the most records in the Guinness Book of Records. He began his record-breaking record-breaking career after meeting his inner spirit while riding a bike non-stop for 24 hours (he’s a devout follower of the Indian mystic Sri Chinmoy), and has kept on breaking records in order to “inspire” normal people to find their very own inner spirit. He currently holds 98 records and habitually demands people to refer to him as Mr. Versatility. We decided to fuck with Ashrita Furman in the only way that Ashrita Furman can be seriously fucked with: we set out to break some of his records. And then laugh in his face.

Here he is breaking some sort of obscure pogo stick record.

Just look at him, with his happy little face jumping up and down on his pogo stick.

Being the kind people that we are, we decided to let Ashrita keep some of his records, like the one where he balanced 223 cigar boxes on his chin, and the one where he translated and recited 111 poems (boring). Instead, we focused on the ones that we thought we might have a vague chance of beating Mr. Versatility in.

Record attempt 1: M&M eating with chopsticks

Mr. Versatility: 40 M&Ms in one minute.

Laura, an intern who had just started at Vice earlier that day, volunteered for this one, as she reckons she’s pretty hot with chopsticks. But M&Ms are slippery little suckers and the tinny dog bowl that we made her eat out of probably didn’t help either.

Laura does possess some pretty amazing chopstick skills, yet Mr. Versatility was just that little bit slicker, and we were off to a losing start.

Our attempt: 25 M&Ms in a minute.

Result: A vaguely respectable fail.

Record attempt 2: Lemon peeling and eating

We thought that we might have a chance in this one – all you have to do is peel and eat a lemon. Not too hard, right?

Mr. Versatility’s time: 10.97 seconds.

Do you see the passion?

Have you ever tried to eat an entire lemon in one bite? It’s shit.

It’s also far more difficult than it sounds. And it brings tears to your eyes.

Our time: A fair bit more than 10.97 seconds.

Result: Miserable fail.

Record attempt 3: Garlic eating

Mr. Versatility: 22 cloves in one minute.

Raw garlic tastes like ass.

And kind of makes you want to throw up.

And drool lots.

Our attempt: Lots of mashing.

Result: Fail.

Record attempt 4: Kiwi fruit peeling and eating

Mr. Versatility’s time: 5.35 seconds.

Green slime went everywhere.

And curdled with all the other food that we’d just eaten. I reckon Mr Versatility doesn’t try and break more than one a day.

Our time: A very respectable 7 seconds.

Result: Fail.

Record attempt 5: Catching Maltesers in your mouth

Our first attempt went quite well. Then it was only downhill from there.

Mr. Versatility: 51 in one minute.

Second attempt. Not so good. Lots of atrocious throwing.

And then a quick one flew through the air and smacked into my face. And I was blinded for half an hour. Attractive shot, no?

Us in one minute: About two.

Result: Really shitty fail and a loss of vision in one eye.

Record attempt 6: Duct taping a person to a wall

Mr. Versatility’s fastest time: 2 minutes and 38 seconds.

This was our last chance to defeat Mr. Versatility. After being bitched at by the three of us, the lithe and brave Eliza from our fashion department agreed to be adhered to a wall with a bunch of duct tape, provided we promised not to ruin her pretty dress.

To beat Mr. Versatility, we needed to not only beat his time, but also suspend Eliza in the air for an entire minute. Hence this shoddy attempt at raising her off the ground.

This laptop-carrying deviant loved it. He even offered to help.

So far so good.

Then we ran out of duct tape.

Luckily for us, at some point or another, Vice has branded EVERYTHING. Vice duct tape to the rescue.

The record had already eluded us though. And Eliza started to get a bit shitty about being taped to a filthy wall in a back alley.

Then she started moaning about her circulation being cut off, so we quietened her down.

Eventually, we pulled out her support from under her feet, and our experiment failed miserably. Consequently, Eliza was in a lot of pain as her skin kind of teared. If only we could have recorded the sounds coming from her mouth at this point.

Then she had to pull off the rest of it.

Which couldn’t have been fun. There was lots of yelping.

Eventually, it all came off and she was free.

However, when we suggested trying to break the record again she sprinted off into the distance, and we were left to dwell on our failures.

So, the day finished on a crushing low. Not only did we fail to break any of Ashrita’s records but we all stank horribly of garlic. At one point, we walked past a dainty Japanese lady on the street who smelt us and started doing this panicked, wide-eyed retching into a little handkerchief. We all agreed that we’d now acquired a newfound respect for Mr. Versatility. Despite being a twat, the man is pretty good at breaking pointless records. We’re not, we’re shit at it.

ERNEST OKRI