Guinness

From here to Hong Kong and myriad ports in between, millions will pause today at 17:59 on the 24-hour clock and raise a glass to the 18th-century Irish brewer who made the day worth celebrating. The man: Arthur Guinness. While today is his 284th birthday, it was 250 years ago, on Dec. 31, 1759, that the 34-year-old from County Kildare signed a lease on a four-acre dilapidated ale brewery near St. James's Gate on the edge of Dublin and began producing the dry stout that bears his name.

The Philadelphia Orchestra's search for its eighth music director has entered a particularly treacherous stretch. Conductors' datebooks being what they are, filled three or four years in advance, the orchestra will have to act soon. But it doesn't have quite enough information on several of the candidates. Rock, hard place. The search committees have vowed that no one will be hired before making more than one visit to the podium - an unimpressive act of restraint when you consider how critical a decision this is. And yet here at the Mostly Mozart Festival Tuesday night was the young Montrealer who is the current front-runner: Yannick N?zet-S?guin.

Utterly Monkey Nick Laird Harper Perennial. 344 pp. $13.95 Reviewed by David Hiltbrand Inquirer Staff Writer As the spouse of It novelist Zadie Smith, Nick Laird is famous by association - which means his first novel, the slender but diverting Utterly Monkey, is getting reviewed far more extensively than it normally would. Take that to heart, aspiring writers, and marry up. This is the tale of Danny Williams, who grew up hardscrabble in Northern Ireland and is now working, with some qualms, as a lawyer in London.

Getting to the beach is a breeze. Parking at the beach is a breeze. Everything about Jacksonville Beach is a breeze except the breeze. It's more of a gale. The rain is coming in sideways. It's like being on the set of The Perfect Storm, and you're George Clooney. It is 47 degrees, and the wind makes it feel closer to 30. The rain doesn't help. There isn't another living soul on this stretch of beach except for a bird. It is walking against the wind and appears to be muttering to itself.

Michie Taylor's huge plant is back inside now, soaking up the sun through sliding-glass doors. When the furnace comes on more steadily, Taylor will turn on a fountain near the plant's base - to bathe it in humidity. It is, after all, a plant of distinction. A plant of accomplishment. The night-blooming cereus, a seven-foot-tall specimen Taylor has tended for the last decade, is now the Guinness world record-holder for "most blooms in one night for the same plant" of Selenicereus grandiflorus.

The sky was just darkening and the nightly bug-song was striking up when the rambling mound of greenery on Michie Taylor's back deck began to move. Ever so slowly, ever so subtly, five-inch pods began to split. Openings the size of quarters appeared. Then half dollars. Roberta Lindsay was taking pictures. A neighbor was shooting video. Carolyn Swatsler crouched by a bud, examining it. She could have sworn the motion was perceptible. And Taylor? She was nervous, flitting among the nearly two dozen guests, ready for the big moment.

Marie L. McGuinness, 81, onetime coach of the Mighty Macs, Immaculata College's championship women's basketball team, died of cancer Wednesday at her Woodbury home. Born in Woodbury, Mrs. McGuinness graduated in 1940 from Woodbury High School, where she met her husband, James A. McGuinness. Ten years later, the couple started the McGuinness Funeral Home in Woodbury. They later opened funeral homes in Runnemede and Washington Township. Mrs. McGuinness earned her bachelor's degree in physical education from Temple University, where she played basketball and field hockey.

If their stomachs hold and the helicopters are on time, four Pennsylvania men this week will ride 72 roller coasters in four states in 24 hours. A Guinness record. An eager nation asks: Why? Phil Guarno, the group's leader, explains: "I'm a roller-coaster freak, but I'm more of a freak to raise money for Children's Miracle Network. " The attempt at the record - which now stands, a bit woozy, at 40 - aims to raise $50,000 for the program at Hershey Medical Center, he says. Five years ago, Guarno's daughter, Melissa, was diagnosed at age 3 with cancer.

OK, kids, so you can't shoot a rubber band farther than the 99 feet that Leo Clouser shot one in Wyomissing in 1999. And you can't grow a pumpkin heavier than the one Gerry Checkon grew in Altoona that weighed 1,131 pounds. And your shoes aren't bigger than the 28.5 size worn by Matthew McGrory. Don't despair. You, too, can get into the "Guinness Book of World Records. " All you have to do is join in on the creation of a 25-by-32-foot logo for the X Games, coming here Aug. 17-22, using Lego blocks.

One day in December, Joe Decker decided to become the best in the world. And so: He bicycled 100 miles. He ran 10 miles. He hiked 10 miles. He power-walked five miles. He kayaked six miles. He skied on a NordicTrack 10 miles. He rowed 10 miles. He swam two miles. He did 3,000 abdominal crunches. He did 1,100 jumping jacks. He did 1,000 leg lifts. He did 1,100 push-ups. And he weight-lifted, cumulatively, 278,540 pounds.