Category: Uncategorized

Limits Of Endurance–The Lone Woman Of San Nicholas Island: The LA Times and writer Joe Robinson dig into the story a 19th century woman who survived for 18 years on a rocky island off the California coast…completely alone. It’s an incredible tale, of good intentions gone bad, and the adaptability and tenaciousness of the human spirit. The woman was an indian indigenous to the island who was left behind by accident when missionaries came to “save” her people by taking them to the mainland (where, surprise, indians were put to work in the missions).

“It’s loneliness that makes the loudest noise,” wrote philosopher Eric Hoffer. For a deserted Nicoleño woman, it no doubt thundered up the arroyos and over the thrashing surf, drowning out all with the echo of what was no longer there. Humans are adaptable creatures, but how do you begin to adjust to a life without a single other human in it?

When she was finally found, she was wearing cormorant feathers all over her body, jabbering away in a language no one could understand, and skinning a dead seal. She was taken back to the mainland, immediately came down with dysentery, and died two weeks later…



“Hmmm. Life on San Nicolas sure is boring. But what if you added other people and brought in television cameras…?”

TWC Quick Hits…:

Killer Elephant Acquitted Of Trampling 20: Defense claims frame-up. Prosecution asks elephant to try on glove and it doesn’t fit…

Russian Man Stands On Hands, And “Walks” Down 32 Flights Of Stairs: Wants to race horse next (see below)…

Australian Pub In Trouble Over Mouse-Chewing Contest: Contest Terms: Bite off tail. Gnaw on torso. Win holiday (and toothpick). Risk $75,000 and 2 years in prison…

“Dinner? No thanks. Urrp. I snacked before I got here…”

Annals Of Inanity–Marathon Man Vs. Horse: England has some great annual traditions. Recently TWC brought you cheeserolling. Today, we present the annual “Man Vs. Horse” race that has been staged for the past 25 years in the deep recesses of Wales. The proposition is simple: 22-mile course, first one (four-legged or two-legged) home, wins. The prize increases by $1500 every year a man does not win. No man has ever won, so this year’s prize was close to $40,000. That was enough to put 500 runners on the line against more than 40 horses and riders, with bookies offering 16 to 1 odds against the two-leggers. After a dedication to “Screaming Lord Sutch,” a huge supporter of the contest who died in 1999, it’s showdown time. Enter the oddly named Huw Lobb, a 27-year old marathoner from London. Off he goes, scrambling around the course, and crosses the finish in 2 hours and 5 minutes. Amazingly, the fastest horse, Kay Bee Jay, manages a time of only 2 hours and 7 minutes. Advantage: hominid. After the race last month in which a pub-crawling greyhound dusted a race horse, this is bad news for the equine species. Perhaps a race against a pig might be in order to boost equine confidence. Lobb could help fund it, except he probably didn’t get home with his full winnings. “Everybody was cheering and shaking my hand and telling me I’d have to buy them a drink with my prize money,” he said after his victory. Great Britain (can’t say England or I’ll get firebombed by Welsh nationalists). Gotta love it…



Another Blow To Horsedom: “Damn. How can that pasty geek be outpacing me? Next year I’m going to carry a lance…”

Annals Of (Dubious) Achievement–“Ferry, We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Ferry!”: British media mogul/hound Richard Branson has found a fast and easy way to get himself back in the record books. The hirsute honcho of the Virgin group just hopped into an “Aquada” amphibious car and drove from England to Calais, France in just an hour and forty minutes. The amphibious record for crossing the Channel is not exactly highly contested. There have been only two previous attempts, the first by Brit Ben Carlin in he 1950s (in a time of seven and a half hours), and the second by a pair of Frenchman, who usurped the record in the 1960s in a time of just over six hours. So let’s see. Using a modern amphibious car–which does 100 mph on land and 30 mph on water–Branson slashed, oh, four and a half hours off the record. Not exactly a nail-biter (though he was cool enough to wear a tux jacket and a bow tie). Now if Branson drove that sucker across the Atlantic, that would be impressive…



Branson’s Latest Ride: “Heh-heh. Another record stolen from the sleeping Frogs. It’s a good thing Napoleon didn’t have any of these…”

(Photo: Associated Press)

Yangtze Swim–Bobbing Along: Slovenian Martin Strel has taken to the waters of the Yangtze and is swimming away in his attempt to paddle all the way to the sea. Click here to watch a video of Strel on departure day (warning: contains scary shots of Strel in a Speedo). After some classic Maoist ceremony (banners, music, a confused Chinese crowd), the vid finally gets to the river, which is moving pretty damn fast. It also has some shots of Leaping Tiger Gorge, which looks, umm, formidable. Strel keeps getting sand in his wetsuit (that can’t be comfortable) and the land-based team can’t keep up with him and his kayakers in the rough, almost road-less country he is swimming through. But at least the locals keep killing chickens for him…



Strel Submerges: “Hmm. It’s cold. It’s muddy. It’s gonna get polluted. What the hell was Mao thinking when he went swimming in this cesspool every year…”

Transat Tieup–And Where’s Ellen: Brit Mike Golding, in his Open 60 monohull Ecover, finally scored a win in a big solo race, winning the Transat over the weekend. Golding has been out there fighting tooth and nail for years now, and this is his first big one. With it, he’s going to be a favorite in November’s Vendee Globe. You can listen to a post-race interview with Golding here. Frenchman Dominique Wavre nabbed second, and Kiwi (and Transat virgin) Mike Sanderson hung onto third despite his broken daggerboard. Yves Parlier finally turned up in his hydroplaning catamaran, and hopefully will set up for a solo North Atlantic record. Which brings me to the question: WHERE THE HELL IS ELLEN? And when will she and B&Q finally take off from New York on their record attempt? By now B&Q is going to be sinking under the weight of weed and barnacle she is accumulating in New York harbor. So bring it on, and get talking to Yves about a simultaneous departure. Now that would be a race really worth watching…



B&Q at Liberty Landing Marina: “Ships and men rot in port.” Even the fat cruiser has been out more often…

Have A Wetass Weekend…

Wetass Sport #27–Competitive Eating: July 4th is approaching, and down at Nathan’s hot dogs on Coney Island that means only one thing: the Super Bowl of speed eating, which is to say the annual spectacle in which people of all shapes and sizes try to cram as many hot dogs and buns down their gullets as they can. You probably think that this is just a minor event, a sideshow in the world of sport. But there is evidence to the contrary. Exhibit 1: Nathan’s just inaugurated a 50 foot by 70 foot Hot Dog Eating Wall Of Fame. On it are such names as Mike “the Scholar” DeVito, Ed “the Animal” Krachie, Krazy Kevin Lipsitz and Hungry Charles Hardy, as well as a clock counting down to the annual gorge-fest. Exhibit 2: there exists–and I swear I am not making this up–an International Federation Of Competitive Eaters (or IFCE). This worthy entity sets the standards and keeps track of all the face-stuffing that goes on around the world. There you can discover some truly amazing eating records, such as: it took a guy named Donald Lerman just 1 minute and 48 seconds to eat 6 pounds of baked beans (whew, better stay away from ol’ Don). Lerman has also polished off 7 quarter pound butter sticks (lightly salted) in the course of 5 minutes (presumably not right after he ate the beans). Anyhow, among other things, there are records for cabbage (6 pounds 9 ounces in 9 minutes), Cannoli (21 in 6 minutes), and oysters (an astonishing 36 dozen in just 10 minutes). This last record was set by a woman named Sonya Thomas, who weighs just 105 pounds and owns an incredible 11 records (65 hard boiled eggs in 6 minutes?! Holy Guacamole, Sonya! Even Cool Hand Luke couldn’t do that). Anyhow, the champion of champions is a Japanese dude called Takeru Kobayashi, who tips the scales at 132 pounds, and is prominent on the Nathan’s Wall Of Fame. He’s like the Mike Tyson of competitive eating, dominating the big contests since 2003. He has gulped down 50.5 hot dogs and buns in 12 minutes, and 20 pounds or rice balls (yes pounds, more than 1/7th of his entire body weight) in 30 minutes. But the eating achievement that really impresses me, that sets Kobayashi high above all those poseurs on Fear Factor who gag, groan and hurl, is the fact that Kobayashi once ate 57 cow brains (that’s 17.7 pounds worth) in 15 minutes. Just hope they weren’t British (mad) cow brains, because this guy is already crazy enough…



Kobayashi At Work: “Damn, I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that big breakfast…”

The Swimming Slovenian–Martin Strel: If you live in Slovenia (a (rare) quiet little corner of the Balkans), there’s just not a lot going on. One way to get out of the house is to start swimming, and keep swimming. Slovenian Martin Strel comes from he town of Mokronog, which somehow derives from a fairy tale about people with wet feet, so it’s no surprise that he took to the water. And that’s pretty much where he’s been for the past 5 years. In 2000, Strel swam the length of the Danube (1867 miles). In 2001 he swam non-stop for 84 hours and covered 313 miles (setting a Guinness World record). In 2002 he became the first person to swim the length of the Mississippi, from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, covering the 2360 miles in 68 days. You’d think the guy would be a total prune after all that immersion. But no. In 2003 he swam the Parana River in Argentina (1200 miles). And today he’s going for the Big One. The Big Yellow. The Yangtze. He dropped into its chilly headwaters in Yunnan Province earlier this week, and plans to become the first person to swim the entire length of the river, a mere 2,860 miles. You can follow his swim here. It should take him about two months, swimming 15 hours a day. To succeed Strell will have to brave plenty of whitewater, a dam and a electrical turbine, and 180 million Chinese who live alongside the Yangtze and don’t necessarily have plumbing…



Superswimmer Strell On The Yangtze: “I trained for this one in the sewers of Paris…”

Everest Ghosts–Mallory and Irvine Expedition Comes Up With A Corpse: Actually, make that 5 corpses. But only one has really got their attention. It was found above 8,000 meters on May 27, and it wasn’t a pretty sight: headless, with many broken bones and massive damage to the chest area. The reason it got their attention is that this mystery climber was wearing a leather (i.e. not modern) boot, and hand-made socks. No climbing harness, personal effects, or rope was found. At first the climbing team thought two characters in blue ink in the boot indicated that the climber was Chinese (and only Irvine and a Chinese climber are thought to have died on this part of Everest (the North side) before 1985). But the writing turns out to be English. The team–which doesn’t believe it is Sandy Irvine (they don’t say why)–gave the corpse a proper burial, but will continue to try to determine its identity (DNA maybe?). The expedition also found an old oxygen bottle at 8,400 meters. What about the other four bodies? Some of them were just photographed because they were hard to reach, and their identities are so far unknown. The expedition is playing it’s cards very close to the chest. “Several other items in various locations” were found, but no details have been offered. The expedition is now off the mountain trying to sort it all out. Stay tuned. This could get very interesting…



Mallory (second from left) and Irvine (far right) En Route To Everest, And Destiny, February 1924

(Photo: Sandy Irvine Trust, UK via EverestNews.Com)