Getting into the Guinness Book of Records is easy. All you have to do is jump one more Messerschmitt than the last man or eat an extra record-breaking grape. But to get into the Book of Heroic Failures by contrast is very, very hard. In the world of the worst there are proven geniuses operating and the standards are so much higher.

In some categories it is difficult to see how anyone could improve upon the existing record I fell sorry, quite frankly, for a young person nowadays setting out to become the world’s worst hijacker when advanced practitioners like the Detroit Two are still airbourne. (They threatened the Pilot with a plastic knife and said "Take us to Detroit." Glancing up from the controls, he replied "We’re already going to Detroit," whereupon these giants of hijacking said "Oh good" and returned to their seats.)

But humanity is an inventive bunch of bipeds, moving ever onwards and downwards. First of all we must applaud a new all-time great who now ranks alongside the immortals.

In August 1980 Joan Melu, a Rumanian folk singer, broke all existing records for the smallest ever audience. Effortlessly pushing aside the previous contenders, he drew an audience of none whatsoever for a concert of what he described as his own style of country and western. Arriving on stage at the Capitol Theatre, Melbourne, in dark glasses and casual clothing, he gazed down on 2,200 empty seats and gave a two-hour show which over ran by 30 minutes.

Throughout Mr Melu performed as if people were there. Coming back on stage after a 5-minute interval the singer announced over the speaker system: "Ladies and gentlemen, Joan Melu." Towards the end of the performance he asked: "Hey everybody, do you want to hear my new one?"

After the show he said that he was "A little nervous" beforehand, but felt very satisfied with the way it had gone. "I love this life," the artist commented.

According to a stagehand, Mr Melu perched on one stool one metre from the edge of the stage and did not move for two hours except to strum his guitar without any attempt at chords and to mumble into the microphone in a monotone fashion. "every song appeared the same, musically and vocally."

Faced with this criticism, the singer said that he doesn’t pay too much attention to the music because "life is in the song not he notes."

Mr Melu triumph came during the tour of Australia’s largest theatres. The week before he had hired the Sydney Opera House and attracted an audience of 18 plus the New York Times critic, most of whom left before the interval.

Few motorists have shown quite so much natural confidence on the road as Miss Bessie Cash who graced Oldham with her skills until 1982 when she voluntarily handed in her driving license for her own safety.

After 40 years with a clean motoring record, Miss Cash, who was 79, suddenly pulled something extra out of the bag. Although traveling a customary route to her home address in Grange Avenue, she suddenly took the wrong turning and went down a cul-de-sac, on to the pavement, past 13 shop fronts, down a subway, through a labyrinth of tunnels, up into a shopping precinct, down another subway, in and out of some trees, narrowly missing 43 shoppers and Miss Eunice Gerrard, a traffic warden, up on to another pavement, in and out of some more trees and straight into a policeman who tried to shop her, but jumped out of the way and watched her drive past a "No entry" sign and right into a panda car. This brought her to the road she had been looking for.

Of her driving Miss Gerrard, the traffic warden said: "I saw a green mini going down the subway. I thought. ‘No, it can’t be.’ I ended up chasing it in and out of the trees."

Explaining the incident, Miss Cash said afterwards: "I just lost my way." Realising that she could not improve upon this performance, she handed in her license and has not driven again.

In 1983 happy children had just left Santa’s grotto amidst much yo-ho-hoing when police walked in, clapped Father Christmas in handcuffs and frogmarched him out through the toy department at Allders store in Croydon. Amazed goblins who assist in the grotto said that Santa was "taken to the police station and charged with persistent non-payment of fines."

While pleading guilty to all the charges at Brighton magistrates court Santa said of his arrest: "It was bloody terrible. I did not like the way it was done." He gave his address as "a bed and breakfast hotel in Streatham".

Cambridge have shot into the lead in the boat race. In 1983 the crews were level, having each sunk three times. (Cambridge showed the way in 1857 and 1978, but valiant Oxford saved their face in 1925 and 1981.)

But then in 1984 pioneering Cambridge did the impossible and sank before the race began. Twenty minutes from the start they rowed into a mooring tug and split their own broad in half.

Full of admiration the race umpire, Mr Michael Sweeny, observed, "The cox is only small and he is sitting behind big men. He must have been unsighted."

For sheer style this rivals the great 1912 race in which both boats sank. Oxford went under first and made for the bank. Once the boat had been emptied of water, they could not restart because a brilliant oarsman had disappeared into the crowd to chat with a friend. Some while later her returned and told his disbelieving crew mates that it was "my chum Boswell".

Oxford then saw Cambridge go by, but they were swimming and their boat was nowhere visible. Sadly, this fine race was abandoned just as it was getting interesting.

Some repairs offer an immense scope to the right sort of person. In 1980 Mr Brian Heise of Utah showed the way when he woke to find a burst pipe flooding his house.

Deciding to hire a pump, he went out of his car only to see that a tyre was flat. Returning indoors to make a phone call, he was hurled across the room by an electric shock so great that he ripped the telephone out of the wall.

He then found the dampness had caused the floor to swell and the front door was jammed so he couldn’t get out. A seminal figure in the world of home repairs, he spent some while screaming through the window for help. Only when a neighbour smashed down the front door did Mr Heise notice that his car had been stolen.

Having informed the police, hired a pump, sealed the leak and cleaned up his flat, Mr Heise felt that the moment had come for him to relax. Displaying an impressive versatility, he went to a nearby civil war pageant and within minutes of arrival he sat on a bayonet. So he went home where the damp carpet made him come out in a rash. Attempting to take it up, he fell on his bayonet wound and called the doctor who was unable to come because of a terrible traffic jam.

At this point Mr Heise went to bed, having achieved enough for one day.

Tired of ten molehills that flourished on his lawn, Mr Oscar Ejiamike decided to remove then. After a vigorous campaign of bombing, gassing and waiting round in the dark with a raised shovel, he found that the ten molehills survived intact. There were also twenty-two new ones.

At this point our man decided to "surprise the moles" with a midnight poisoning raid. He drove his Jaguar 2.4 automatic to the edge of the lawn and trained the headlamps upon the enemy zone. While reaching across for the poison, Mr Ejiamike knocked the car into reverse and accelerated at 60 mph through the wall of his cottage knocking over the electric heater, bursting his petrol tank, setting fire to his newly decorated sitting room, and wrecking his car.

While this certainly surprised the moles, it had no effect upon the 32 molehills amongst which it was little more than a talking point. Next morning Mr Ejiamike bought 22 bags of ready-mix cement and announced that he was going to concrete the lawn over.

Newlyweds John and Barbara Besio claimed this record at the Blue Dolphin restaurant, Los Angeles, during 1980.

The reception made a promising start when the groom’s father expressed the wish to dance upon the table. So unbridled was this performance that the manager called the police. In the resulting fracas five policemen were injured and six wedding guests arrested.

At this point the bride asked what kind of family she was marring into, whereupon the groom departed from the usual custom, picked up the entire wedding cake and pushed it in her face. When fighting broke out between the happy couple, the police were called again and threatened to arrest them. Guests waving off the happy couple in the going-away car noticed that Mrs Besio, as we must now call her, landed a blow which appeared to temporarily stun her husband, bringing peace to an otherwise perfect occasion.

In the history of the cinema the World’s Worst Film Festival proved a highspot. Delegates to this treasure house of special celluloid moments got off to a cracking start with Tiny Town, the world’s first all-midget Western. It mainly consisted of cowboys walking under saloon doors, chasing each other under bar-room tables and riding into the sunset on what were obviously Shetland ponies. Applause broke out in the chase sequence when the three-foot eight-inch villain Little Billy. Rocky galloped out of town on a black horse, and was next seen scooting along on a white one only to arrive at his ranch reunited with/back on the black one again.

For six days the festival maintained this high standard and special acclaim went to The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, a four-hour epic in which a consignment of giant tomatoes go berserk and terrorize San Diego. In one of the best scenes a housewife is threatened by a bloodthirsty seedless oozing out of her in-sink garbage grinding unit.

The eventual winner was They Saved Hitler’s Brain in which the Fuehrer’s grey cells wreak post-bunker havoc on a scale that would have surprised even Adolf.

In May 1986 the distinguished British journalist Henry Porter revealed that he had planned five deliberate grammatical errors in his Sunday Times column and would send a bottle of champagne to any reader who spotted them all correctly.

Letters poured in by the sackload. The next week Mr Porter announced that readers had found not one of the five mistakes. However, they had located a further 23 of which Mr Porter was not aware.

This overtakes the previous best. In 1964 the Carmel Independent printed a school photograph and asked readers to identify which child became a well-known celebrity. White cropping the picture for publication, an enthusiastic sub-editor cut out the child in question, making it impossible to win the contest from merely looking at the paper.