Andre breaks 42nd world record

Sharon Mathala | Thursday January 9, 2014 15:56

The 63-year old has in the past broken 40 world records, including dancing non-stop for 345 hours. After his skyping allocution, Van Zijl will travel around southern Africa in commemoration of Nelson Mandela who shares his birthday with the record breaker’s mother.

“I have in the past travelled across Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and other southern African countries and covered 140,000km,” he told Mmegi this week.

“This time I will be doing it to commemorate one of the world’s most iconic leaders, Nelson Mandela, who happens to share my mother’s birthday – same day, same year.”

The trendsetter has great, if a bit unusual plans for the future -  he intends to break at least one record per year for the remainder of days in his life. “It is my wish to break records, at least one per year,” he enthuses. “I have been doing this for the better part of my life and it fulfills me, it is a part of me.”

He revealed to Mmegi that during his 100 hours of skyping, he would be talking to celebrities, among them Nicole Kidman and Charlize Theron, as well as many heads of state.

He was scheduled to skype from Tuesday at 10am until tomorrow (Friday) at 2pm non-stop. “I will have little sleep time and all will be photographed and videotaped throughout my escapade,” said the irrepressible Van Zijl.

Asked how he intends to cope with the calls of nature, he responded: “All will also be videotaped, the skyping will not pause for anything.

Even when I have to go to the toilet, I’ll still be skyping. I am very much determined to achieve this goal that I have set for myself.”

Last year, Van Zijl was the first-ever man in the world to talk on the phone for over 50 hours, an experience he cites as one of the best, yet tiring feats ever.

The URDB World Record for a Skype Video Chat is 13,909 minutes by Tian Enfield. Cassie Castellanos has a pending attempt measured at 15,689 minutes. Van Zijl is on his second day today.