SIDELINES...

FORK IN THE BRAIN

Fairview, Oregon, is seeking a Guinness World Record for the tallest fork, having installed a 37ft (11m) one outside a new food truck plaza. “We wanted something on the corner, and then one of the design teams said, let’s just put a fork here and we’ll come back to it, and it just kind of stuck in the brain,” said Mayor Brian Cooper. “You can come up with an entire marketing scheme of ‘Take a left at the fork’, ‘The Fork in Fairview’”. The current tallest fork is 35ft (10.5m) high and is in Missouri. [UPI] 16 Feb 2022.

CHOPPED POTATO

In Cyprus, locals awoke on New Year’s Day to find someone had chopped down the 13ft (4m) “Big Potato” that stood at the entrance to the village of Xylophagou. It had been erected in October to celebrate the local Spunta potato variety and quickly became a local landmark. Previously it had been graffitied and draped in Christmas lights but attracted tourists from across the island, partly as its shape was reputed to be suggestive. < i> 4 Jan 2022.

MIGHTY THAW

After competing in the 50km (31 mile) skiing event at the Beijing Olympics in exceptionally cold conditions, Finnish skier Remi Lindholm needed a heat pack to thaw out his penis, which had become frozen despite the insulating suits and thermal underlayers he wore. This was the second time he had needed emergency genital thawing to avoid frostbite after a race, having suffered a similar experience in Finland last year. “When the body parts started to warm up after the finish, the pain was unbearable,” he said. theguardian.co.uk, 20 Feb 2022.