One man and his ball.

A social media user has admitted he has spent 32 years working on his hobby – building one of the largest rubber band balls in the world.

Reddit user and sports writer Zack Hample, 35, took to social media to confirm that he had been building the ball since the age of three, and is still working on the huge ball. He posted a photo of the ball, along with two bunches of bananas and a laptop in order to show the scale of the ball, along with the comment: “32 years in the making. Started with just one and, yes, it would bounce if I could lift it.”

The rubber band ball weighs almost the same as two people – around 253lbs – and Mr Hample has said that he has spent almost £920 building it. However, despite his efforts, he has yet to steal the title of the world’s largest rubber band ball, which still belongs to Joel Waul who claimed the title in 2008, according to Guinness World Records.

The ball belonging to Mr Waul weighed more than 9,000lbs and was seven feet tall. He created it from over 700,000 rubber bands and it is now displayed for the public to see at Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! museum.

You can view a video of Zack and his pride and joy here.

Dullsville.

The mundane monikers of the Scottish village of Dull – twinned with the US town of Boring – and the Australian region of Bland Shire have been celebrated this week with a visit from residents of one area to another.

Residents of the Bland Shire district in New South Wales, Australia, Dot McCaskie and Gail Platz, paid a visit to Dull in the Perth and Kinross region of Scotland in an attempt to link the three towns with such mundane names.

According to the Central Scotland News Agency, the village of Dull and the Oregon town of Boring were twinned last year in a bid to lure in tourists and create links between the communities. Politicians in Oregon have also planned to create an official “Boring and Dull Day” every year on 9 August – the anniversary of the twinning of the towns – which would celebrate everything that is dull.

Bland Shire is now hoping to get in on the tourist action, thanks to its name – which honours the founder of the Australian Medical Association, William Bland.

The visiting pair were welcomed by Dull-based wildlife tour operators, Julie and Donald Riddell. Julie told the publication: “Their slogan goes ‘Bland by name but not by nature’ and if their friendly personalities are a taste of how things are back in their home town, then I would say they are totally right. Dot said Bland was just a bit tired of being made fun of and when someone spotted the Dull and Boring twinning they thought they’d make it a threesome.”

Coffee and baby names. A natural union?

When a couple based in New Haven, Connecticut, could not decide on a name for their baby, they turned to the customers of their local Starbucks coffee outlet to help them make a decision.

Mark Dixon, 24, and Jennifer James, 25, were tired of trying to decide on a moniker for their unborn son, and decided to open up the decision to a public vote.

The young couple made a sign saying that their baby would be called either Jackson Logan or Logan Jackson, and put it in the New Haven Green branch of Starbucks.

Customers then wrote their vote onto a piece of ballot paper and dropped it into a coffee cup underneath the sign when they went in to pick up their coffee fix.

The couple said that they picked up the inspiration for the voting system from a Starbucks’ employee of the month system, where customers cast votes for their top employee. “We saw that and thought we might as well see how it works,” Dixon told the New Haven Register.

Almost 2,000 customers voted on the name, and, despite some odd suggestions for alternative names which include Barack Obama, Hulk Hogan and even ‘Latte’, the votes helped the couple decide on a name – Logan Jackson Dixon.

The World’s Largest Rubber Duck. View more pictures on The Telegraph. 

It has already journeyed down the Thames but now the Floating Duck Sculpture, the work of Florentign Hoffman has made it all the way to Hong Kong.

The structure arrived in the city this week (May 2nd) and is set to remain in Hong Kong until June 9th.

Dubbed Spreading Joy Around the World, the duck was dreamt up by the Dutch conceptual artist to introduce a little fun into the art world. It has already travelled to 12 cities in ten different countries and looks set to continue bringing its peaceful message to the world.

The artist’s website explains the thought behind the creation: “The Rubber Duck knows no frontiers, it doesn’t discriminate people and doesn’t have a political connotation. The friendly, floating Rubber Duck has healing properties: it can relieve mondial tensions as well as define them.

“The rubber duck is soft, friendly and suitable for all ages!

The structure is the World’s Largest Rubber Duck and measures in at 26 x 20 x 32 metres.

Shakespeare. Butter wouldn’t melt?

A new report has claimed that the playwright William Shakespeare could have been a tax dodger and a “ruthless businessman”.

Researchers from Aberystwyth University have been looking into the Bard’s life as one of the biggest landowners in Warwickshire and discovered that he didn’t always uphold the morals put forth in his plays.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Jayne Archer, a researcher in Renaissance literature at the Welsh university, commented: “There was another side to Shakespeare besides the brilliant playwright — as a ruthless businessman who did all he could to avoid taxes, maximize profits at others’ expense and exploit the vulnerable – while also writing plays about their plight to entertain them.”

One particularly harsh notion is the accusation that Shakespeare exploited the famine that gripped the nation during his lifetime. The academics claimed that he “stored grain, malt and barely for resale at inflated prices to neighbors and local tradesmen”. The profits from these sales were reportedly funneled into further land purchases.

While doing his best to profit from others’ hunger, it appears that this dark side of the Bard was also doing everything he could to “avoid taxes, maximize profits at others’ expense and exploit the vulnerable”.

His approach may have been dubious, but it did allow Shakespeare to retire after a working life of just 24 years, suggesting his efforts were indeed profitable, however questionable his morals were.

The bread roll in question

A family in Surrey has kept a bread roll for over 120 years as an heirloom linking them to a relative who was imprisoned over a century ago.

Joseph Harrison was released from Wandsworth Gaol back in 1889 after a short time behind bars. He was locked up after taking part in the country’s anti-compulsory vaccination programme and later failing to pay a fine for not inoculating his daughters against smallpox.

The bread roll in question formed part of his breakfast on the last day of his incarceration. Mr Harrison chose to keep it as a reminder of his prison time and dried and preserved the roll in a paper bag kept in the chimney breast of his home.

Now his 92-year-old grandson, Terry O’Kelly from Abinger in Surrey, has come forward to share his story of one of the world’s oldest pieces of bread. Speaking to the Leatherhead Advertiser, Mr O’Kelly said: “I remember when I was a kid, if other members of the family were coming over, he would get up there and get this brown paper bag out and show it to them.

“He was very proud of it, although he never spoke about his time in prison. All his life he was involved with the anti-vaccination campaign.”

The existence of the bread roll re-emerged when its original owner’s grandson showed the item to Liz Hamilton, the Abinger parish magazine editor who is also the current inhabitant of Mr Harrison’s former home.

Ms Hamilton explained that the bread looks just like “a piece of stale bread from a week or two ago”, adding that it’s hard to believe its true age.

Numb bum anyone?

Sweden’s bizarre pole-sitting competition has come to a close for another year. The event saw a group of contestants struggle through a 48-hour period sat on top of blocks of ice in freezing conditions.

It all came to an end this weekend after two women and four men battled it out to see who could sit on an 8.25 foot high block of ice for the longest.

Temperatures dropped to below -18 degrees Fahrenheit during the competition, which was held in the Swedish town of Vilhelmnina after a local resident took part in a similar thing in Russia and decided to bring it back to their hometown.

Annica Anderson, the organiser of the Swedish event, explained that ever since then the competition has been held annually every since for the past dozen years.

Competitors aren’t just in it for the glory or the frostbitten bums, however. The individuals who manage to sit on top of their ice blocks for the longest are in with a chance of taking home a share of a £1,960 prize. They were allowed down for toilet breaks every other hour, but according to contestants, the most frustrating thing about the event is dealing with the boredom.