FROM The Rev Chris Sterry's mammoth sermon, to 20 staff from Asda Accrington cramming themselves into a mini.

It seems everyone is trying to break a world record at the moment.

With this in mind reporter IAN SINGLETON set out to get into the record books. IT couldn't be hard, I thought....an afternoon's work and be immortalised in print.

The Rev Chris Sterry's record-breaking 28 hour 45 minutes of preaching in Whalley seemed too much like hard work.

Just a few hours should do the trick.

When plotting the world record attempts I thought my best chance would be to have a go at as many as possible.

That way, I might actually find one I could do. First stop was the construction of the world's longest continuous sausage. M & M Meat Shop set the record with their 28.77-mile sausage made in Ontario, Canada, six years ago.

But this idea was sizzled instantly when Cliff Cowman of Cowman's Famous Sausage, Castle Street, Clitheroe, told me it would cost £24,500 to make, well over budget.

He also added that the 16,100 Ib structure would take 161,000 sausages, 40 men and 36 hours to make -- time and staff I didn't have.

Next up was Beer Mat Flips.

I managed 20, which I thought was an achievement until I discovered Dean Gould of Felixstowe, Suffolk completed 111 in January 1993.

I was now beginning to realise that record-breakers were special people with a talent. But surely Mr Gould of Suffolk had to start somewhere...

A party trick I had learnt once provided my next route into the Guinness Book.

Again, the record had been set by Mr Gould, this time for coin snatching.

Pile them up on your elbow and flip them all into your hand, what could be simpler? Many things! Mr Gould caught £32.80 -- 328 10 pence pieces -- into his hand but my effort added up to just 45 pennies.

I've always had a big mouth, though, so I tried to spit a melon seed further than Texan Lee Wheelis's 69ft 9in, but mine ran out of juice after eight feet. I tried to blast it further, but the only way the Texan would be beaten was if I leaned out of a top floor window at Blackburn Town Hall and blew it down to the precinct floor.

Perhaps the champagne cork flight record was mine as this seemed like it needed the least amount of talent, just shake the bottle up, aim for the sky and bingo! Prof Emeritus Heinrich Medicus got one to fly 177ft 9in in New York back in 1988.

But, due to a lack of wind, and possibly cheap bubbly, the cork floundered after 40 feet.

And, by 5pm, I decided I didn't have the dedication and quit without a record being scratched, never mind broken.

The only way into the Guinness Book of Records would be for the most failed attempts in one afternoon, but a spokesman even shot that down: "If we did set up a record for that we would know who to contact now."

The spokesman added: "As you've learnt, breaking world records is not as easy as it appears.

"It takes a lot of practice and attempts, which cannot be done in an afternoon. It's a lot harder when you actually give it a go."