A 24-hour hug that set a world record
As Roy Castle put it back in the Seventies, dedication's what you need if you wanna be a record breaker.
Today, eight dedicated Londoners are celebrating after embracing for 24 hours and 44 minutes, beating the record for the world's longest hug by 11 minutes.
The record was registered at 8am this morning at St Pancras, in the shadow of the 20-tonne statue of a cuddling couple, The Lovers, that greets arriving Eurostar passengers.
The epic hug is the first of 20 Guinness World Records which London and Partners hopes to win for the capital in the six months before the Olympics. Some are "latent records": we already boast the world's first underground train system and the world's biggest annual fundraising event, the Marathon.
But the record for the world's biggest Easter Egg hunt will be attempted at - you guessed it - Easter. The world's longest photo and the world's biggest curtsy relay are in the pipeline. Plans are afoot to claim Sherlock Holmes as the record-holder for most-filmed character.
All records are vetted by Guinness's 30-strong team of strict adjudicators. The rules for hugging and all "endurance" records were changed this year to allow participants to earn five minutes' break every hour: previously, huggers had to carry on hugging, under the eyes of adjudicators, even during lavatory visits.
Couples can shift position, be fed and watered, made up and massaged, but can't change their arm positions. One couple was disqualified before the two-hour mark for doing just that: silly huggers. Others were made of sterner stuff.
Lorna Tulett, 31, who was in Gareth Malone's army wives' choir, was determined to break the record to raise awareness for military charities including the Royal British Legion. Her husband Bryan, 32, a sergeant in 24 Commando Engineer Regiment, said a marathon hug was "pretty easy", especially compared to his last tour of Afghanistan. "We got in some practice of long hugs before I left," he said. "I had to peel her off me to get out the door."
I can't do this for 24 hours
Once a friend set a challenge that she promised would have therapeutic effects: hug for two minutes continuously.
While most found the experience enjoyable, after 20 seconds of clinging to someone else's boyfriend, I had begun to feel twitchy - almost desperate to break the bond, in fact.
Fine, so my friends say I have intimacy issues, but I maintain that hugging for more than a few seconds, even with a close friend (is anyone that close?) or family member, is not only awkward but a bit odd. Who has the patience - or the time?
The idea, then, of hugging a colleague, whose personal space I have never previously shared, for any small part of a 25-hour record attempt made me a little uncomfortable.
"Hugs promote feelings of happiness, which translates into oxytocin [the bonding hormone] being released in our brain," said Jean Smith, the on-site "hug-ologist".
Well, not for me. In the days leading up to the challenge the very thought of it triggered cortisol (the stress hormone) to shoot through my blood stream.
One record-attempting hugger, embracing her female colleague, agreed with me. "This is a stress position," she said. "It's unnatural, and after a while it hurts."
But another hugger thought the contrary. "You spread wonderful hormones by hugging. When people hug, they love it."
But she would say that. She, Mayella Reynolds, founded Random Huggers, a group that offers hugs for strangers on the streets of London.
I'll admit whenever I see those "free hug" touts I think, "You wish".
Nick and I managed 30 minutes on and off, although we would have been disqualified several times for breaking the bond and adjusting our arms.
"This isn't so bad, is it?" he asked me as we squeezed. Thank goodness he couldn't see my facial expression.
