Yes, the tiny eastern European country of Romania has claimed Lebanon’s much coveted title of ‘country with the world’s largest version of its own flag’ overnight, when 200 people spent several hours rolling out the five tonne national flag in front of the beady eye of a Guinness World Record adjudicator.
Jack Brockbank, of the beady eye, then set about measuring the mammoth flag, which he said comes in at a whopping 349 by 227 metres, making it roughly the size of three football pitches.
I hope Mr Brockbank’s friends and family are proud of him measuring flags for a living. Having the power to bestow world records hither and thither must mean, in their eyes at least, he spends his spare time sitting on the right hand of God.
The numbers, once crunched, make for some astonishing reading, if for no other reason than making one wonder why anyone would bother in the first place.
More than 70 kilometers of coloured thread went into the knitting of the red, yellow and blue striped colossus which, when laid completely flat on the ground reportedly covers 79,290 square metres.
If one fluffy kitten can warm the hearts of three people by playing with one ball of thread, how many hearts could be warmed by x amount of kittens playing with 70 kilometers worth of coloured twine?
An infinite number of viral videos and adorable gifs could be created, surely.
Clinceni’s Romanian flag has crushed the previous record held by Lebanon, whose reaction to being unseated has yet to be recorded. One would imagine they have more important things to worry about, like the Syrian Civil War spilling across into its borders and the rise of the Iranian armed wing of Hezbollah preaching a return to shariah law.
Strong winds nearly caused a disaster when the flag almost came free of its moorings. It took huge amounts of sandbags to keep the flag from blowing away. Depending on which way the wind was blowing, chances are if the flag had come loose, it could very well have destroyed the entire village, which would have been amusing, in a sad kind of way.
Romanian PM Victor Ponta and his main cabinet ministers have promised to visit the flag and the tiny town about 70 kilometers south of the capital Bucharest “soon”.
Sounds more like a ‘definitely maybe’ to me.
Image: Getty
