Ah, the Guinness Book of World Records…what a book it is. It seems that nowadays no matter what you do – as long as its something ludicrous – you’ll get into the book and become the world record holder of something or another. Some grow the longest fingernails… others attempt the ghastly like how many cockroaches they can eat within a minute, and some perform the plain stupid such as who can walk the furthest with a milk bottle balanced on their head (Yep, there’s a world record for this!). And now… we have a new fastest mobile phone texting champion on the planet.

Yes, that’s right! At this year’s SingTel SMS Shootout 2006 event, sixteen year old, Ang Chuang Yang of Singapore typed out a 160-character text message in just 41.52 seconds to fend off hundreds of other participants and claim the coveted title! “That’s easy!”, I hear you all say – but its not any old text message I might add… it has to be a ‘Guinness approved’ text message…

Obviously the “Puh! I can to better than that!” side of me came to the fore and I had to give this a go and see where I stood against ‘the best’. I’m a heavy texter, so I was quietly confident and thought I stood a good chance of coming close with my trusted Nokia 6230. Naturally, predictive text was turned off for this feat (cheaters never prosper) and away I went!

All I have to say is: NO WAAAAY!

No way can that be written in 42 seconds! That’s absolutely ridiculous! My time was a distant 1 min 59 secs. Three times over the record! I could not believe I was that far off! Oh how my head dropped in shame!

So, I thought I’d make myself feel a little better and get a few friends around the office to have a bash at it and see where they stood. The average time came out be a woeful 3 minutes, with the fastest time at a more respectable (cough) 1 min 45 secs by my mate Chris on his Sony Ericsson W810i. Still, I managed to beat Nick’s pathetic time of 3 mins 42 secs, so it seems I have won the battle of the authors…for now anyway!

                                Ang Chuang Yang               Chris

So, I imagine all those reading, are just itching to have a crack at the world record yourselves … come on then folks the challenge has been laid down! Post your times and lets see who’s the fastest finger in the west!

Here’s the Guinness approved text you’ll need to have a bash at:

The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human.

Good luck! …’cos you’re definitely gonna need it!!!