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UAE Seems Intent on Setting a World-Record Record

November 26th, 2015 · No Comments · Dubai, The National, UAE

I am going to make a sweeping statement.

Nobody loves Guinness world records as does the UAE … and, specifically, the people of Dubai.

Dubai has some legit, significant world records. Absolutely. Led by the world’s tallest building — a record regular folks have paid attention to, probably going back to the Tower of Babel.

But many of them are silly/shameless attempts to attract attention — and we must concede they succeed on that level, as a check of The National’s website would suggest.

Take, for instance, the world’s largest human sentence, a record apparently set this week by a school in Dubai.

Does this constitute something special, in the realm of human achievement? Or is it mostly about assembling the student bodies of  35 schools and herding them out to a soccer field and getting 1) a Guinness representative on site (not a record if Guiness isn’t there to see it) and 2) getting someone to take the photo from above.

The media release alleges 6,938 kids took part, breaking the world record for “largest human sentence” — in this case, “HAPPY NATIONAL DAY”.

Previous record? As The National dutifully reports, “was set on May 8 by the Tiens Group of China after 6,262 of the company’s employees were flown to Nice, France, for a vacation where they lined up to spell: “Tiens’ dream is Nice in the Cote D’Azur.”

(Not clear from the story whether the sentence was rendered in Latin letters or in Chinese characters.)

We have more silly records, from Dubai, including one from way back earlier this week.

This one? World’s largest synchronized car dance.

Others from this year:

Longest DJ relay.

World’s longest head stand.

World’s largest collection box.

And we have demonstrated how silly these can be.

Proof that the UAE is nuts about world records was assembled in this story in The National, from November 2013. At the time, the UAE claimed 147 Guinness world records, and the rest of the Middle East had 380 combined — “which is perhaps why Dubai is home to the Middle East’s only Guinness World Records office”.

The story quotes the chief executive of an Abu Dhabi-based branding company as saying “setting world records has proven to be good for tourism – and business”.

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