So, is this a Blaine drain on all our imaginations?

Sep 11 2003 By Jenny Parkin, The Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Jenny Parkin

IN TERMS of showing off, I imagine firing staples into your own flesh and whizzing down snowy hills in plastic toilet cubicles, Jackass-style, is pretty good fun.

And -in a cruel twist of fate - he won't be getting a visit from Cheryl Baker, either. Despite all the publicity, including apparently cutting his ear off at a press launch, his feat will not be recognised by the Guinness Book Of Records.

Compilers said they would not endorse fasting records and, worse still, say it won't match previous record holders' efforts to live in tinier boxes!

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That's dedication ...

David Blaine won't make it into the Guinness Book Of Records but here are some of the masters of endurance who did ...

* In the 6th century, St Simeon The Younger spent his final 45 years living at the top of a stone pillar in Syria.

* Amresh Kumar Jha balanced on one foot for 71 hours and 40 minutes in Bihar, India, in 1995.

* Peter McKinlay and John Murrie crawled 31 miles and 827 yards around an athletics track in Falkirk in 1992.

* New Yorker Ashrita Furman jumped 16 miles on a pogo stick in 6 hours and 40 minutes in Japan in 1993 - and also made it into the Guinness book by walking 70 miles with a milk bottle balanced on his head.

* Indian Matram Bapu remained on the same spot by the roadside in the village of Chitra for 22 years, from 1960 to 1982.