World’s Oldest Bottle of Champagne (184-year-old)

One tasted white truffles, another gingerbread. But the esteemed wine critics that gathered to taste the world’s oldest Champagne were at least agreed on one thing: that they were enjoying the opportunity of a lifetime. 12 of the wine industry’s top tasters had been given the rare chance to give their verdict on the world’s oldest bottle of Champagne. Only two bottles now remain of the Perrier-Jouet 1825 Vintage, recognised by The Guinness Book of Records as the oldest remaining Champagne in the world.

World’s Oldest Cat (29-year-old)

Until he passed away at the ripe old age of 31 in July 2001, the world’s oldest cat was chasing spiders without the equivalent of a feline walking cane. Spike, a British ginger and white tom, had been certified as the world’s oldest living cat by the Guinness Book of Records in 1999, when the sprightly kitty was just 29.

Measured in human years, Spike was an amazing 140 years old, though many veterinarians dispute the validity of such human/cat comparisons. (Perhaps it’s just jealousy; Spike retained all his original teeth and hair!) Either way, Spike beat the odds – domestic longhairs have a life span of about 15 years. His owner, Mo Elkington, an aromatherapist from Dorset, England, purchased Spike in 1970. She fed him a steady diet of fish and cat food, with a little aloe vera mixed in to protect him against arthritis and rheumatism.

World’s Oldest Father (90-year-old)

The world’s oldest father has done it again recently, fathering a child for at least the 21st time, at the age of 90. Indian farmer Nanu Ram Jogi, who is married to his fourth wife, boasts he does not want to stop, and plans to continue producing children until he is 100. Mr Jogi admits he is not certain how many children his series of four wives have borne him – but counts at least 12 sons and nine daughters and 20 grand-children.

World’s Oldest Conjoined Twins (57-year-old)

When Maureen Galyon gave birth in 1951, she had no idea she was expecting two babies – let alone conjoined twins. The tots, joined at the torso, were not expected to survive the night as baffled doctors tried to work out if they could be separated.

Now, at 57, Ronnie and Donnie are the world’s oldest conjoined twins and have amazed the medic world by hanging onto life for so long. And, as their health declines and they near their dying days, the pair have opened their doors to a documentary team to reveal the secrets of their extraordinary life together. Although every day is a struggle as the men have to coordinate the simplest of tasks, they have a close, loving relationship and are able to live together in their own home in Dayton, Ohio.

World’s Oldest Mother (70-year-old)

Meet Rajo Devi Lohan, the Indian woman who, in November 2008, gave birth to her first child – at the age of 70. She said she had waited for more than 40 years for this child and that she plans to breastfeed her for at least three years. And, who knows, maybe she will.

World’s Oldest Yoga Instructor (83-year-old)

Yoga instructor Bette Calman may be 83, but she’s still bending over backwards to spread the benefits of the ancient Indian discipline. The nimble grandmother can really pull some shapes and with her set hair and pearl earrings she looks as glamorous as Greta Garbo in a pink jumpsuit. With 40 years of teaching under her belt, the Australian wonder is living proof that a lifetime’s dedication to yoga will keep you flexible as a rubber band.

Update after Swiss Bank has agreed to disclose the funds.

1) Yes, 70 lakhs crores rupees of India are lying in Switzerland banks. This is the highest amount lying outside any country, from amongst 180 countries of the world, as if India is the champion of Black Money.

2) Swiss Government has officially written to Indian Government that they are willing to inform the details of holders of 70 lakh crore rupees in their Banks, if Indian Government officially asks them.

3) On 22-5-08, this news has already been published in The Times of India and other Newspapers based on Swiss Government's official letter to Indian Government.

4) But the Indian Government has not sent any official enquiry to Switzerland for details of money which has been sent outside India between 1947 to 2008.. The opposition party is also equally not interested in doing so because most of the amount is owned by politicians and it is every Indian's money.

5) This money belongs to our country. From these funds we can repay 13 times of our country's foreign debt. The interest alone can take care of the Center's  yearly budget. People need not pay any taxes and we can pay Rs. 1 lakh to each of 45 crore poor families.

6) Let us imagine, if Swiss Bank is holding Rs. 70 lakh Crores, then how much money is lying in other 69 Banks? How much they have deprived the Indian people? Just think, if the Account holder dies, the bank becomes the owner of the funds in his account.

7) Are these people totally ignorant about the philosophy of Karma? What will this ill-gotten wealth do to them and their families when they own/use such money, generated out of corruption and exploitation?

8) Indian people have read and have known about these facts. But the helpless people have neither time nor inclination to do anything in the matter. This is like "a new freedom struggle" and we will have to fight this.

9) This money is the result of our sweat and blood.. The wealth generated and earned after putting in lots of mental and physical efforts by Indian people must be brought back to our country.

10) As a service to our motherland and your contribution to this struggle, please circulate at least 10 copies of this note amongst your friends and relatives and convert it into a mass movement.

The 61-year-old who performs a balancing act with his BMX on cliff edges

Expertly balanced 300ft up a rock face, Khiv Raj Gurjar is the world's finest exponent of Extreme Yoga.

Using only a BMX bike for support, 61-year-old Khiv takes the ancient art of meditation to new levels as he performs complex forms of yoga merely inches from the sheer drop. Travelling to the top of the rocky outcrop near to his home of Jodhpur in the Indian state of Rajasthan, Khiv begins his exercises at dawn, so as to avoid the raging desert heat.

Yoga master: Khiv Raj Gurjar thinks nothing of executing a few complex poses atop a rocky outcrop at dawn each morning

Balancing Act: The 61-year-old has studied yoga since the age of 13.

A student of yoga since the age of 13 and a keen sportsman, Khiv has combined his other great love, cycling, to create his new and extreme form. 'From my childhood I was passionate to do things which are extraordinary and look very dangerous,' says Khiv.

'I tried magic, learned acrobatics, yoga, did cycling, played football. 'As I grew into my twenties I found combining yoga and cycling stunts would be something very unconventional, but also deeply challenging. ' Presently able to perform up to 36 individual yoga poses on his bike, adventure enthusiast Khiv does his yoga exercises for one hour every day.

'I practice and exercise every day of the year,' explains the yoga master. 'This is enough time for me as I have been doing this since my childhood and I am very good at it.' 

Khiv feels that his yoga, which takes him up clock towers in crowded bazaars and to the top of ancient forts is not only soul enriching, but exciting too.

Obama's Bodyman

Crammed into a tiny cubicle just outside the door of the Oval Office sat Reggie Love, a 6ft 5in, 18-stone, shaven-headed, muscle-packed, former American football player.

Though the man is fast, athletic and tough - he can bench press 350lb and played both basketball and American football at Varsity level - he is not one of the new President’s official bodyguards.

Reggie Love, President Obama's bodyman, lugs bags to a car and, right, on the campaign trail

And though he has a degree in political science from one of America’s finest institutions, the blue chip Duke University, he is not a policy adviser.

Yet Reggie, a charismatic and immaculately dressed 26-year-old from Charlotte, North Carolina, spends more time with Mr Obama than anyone else - even the First Lady, Michelle Obama. For he is the President’s ‘bodyman’.

The bodyman is a curiously American political appointment, dating back to the first U.S. president George Washington, who paid his assistant Tobias Lear £250 a year to act as valet, secretary, bodyguard and general factotum. The personal protection role has long been assumed by the highly-trained bodyguards of the Secret Service but, ever since Washington, every President has employed a trusted personal aide who caters for his every whim.

The role remained a little-known political tradition until the inner workings of the White House were dramatised in the TV drama The West Wing, where the handsome and dapper bodyman Charlie Young, played by Dulé Hill, was always at the right hand of fictional President Josiah Bartlet.

Obama and Reggie with another aide in the campaign aircraft.

Like Young, Love is expected to shadow the President at all times, rarely straying more than a body length away from him during his waking hours. It is Reggie who holds Mr Obama’s BlackBerry, dials the numbers on his mobile phone, briefs the White House chef on what the President would like for lunch and what he would like to drink.

Every time Mr Obama leaves for a meeting, Reggie hands him his suit jacket and dabs any spots on his tie with a stain removal pen. Until Reggie Love, bodymen tended to be regarded as glorified butlers, hired for their self-effacing manners and efficiency at managing their employers’ schedules.

Their most public job was handing out souvenir cufflinks engraved with the Presidential seal to White House visitors. But Mr Obama promises to be a different kind of President - with a different kind of bodyman.