Expat smashes record by speaking to mum for 43 seconds before mentioning weather

ABU DHABI: A British expat living in Abu Dhabi yesterday smashed all known regional records when she managed to talk to her mother in the UK for 43 seconds without once mentioning the weather.

Janice Battersby, a primary school teacher in the UAE capital, phoned her mum at 8.04pm yesterday evening, and discussed issues such as traffic, the chaos surrounding the London Olympics and even what she had eaten for dinner for 43.01 seconds before moving onto the subject of how much hotter it was in the Middle East than Western Europe.

“I wasn’t even trying,” claimed a stunned Battersby shortly after Guinness World Records had informed her of her feat. “My mum usually starts rabbiting on about the rain or how it must be much hotter over here within the first few breaths, but I just don’t think she was feeling herself.”

A spokesperson for Guinness described Battersby’s achievement as “phenomenal” and said it would be extremely difficult to beat.

“Speaking to anyone in the UK for longer than 30 seconds without someone whinging about the heat or rain is an remarkable feat at any time of year, but during the summer months it’s almost unheard on. Forty-three seconds is an absolutely outstanding figure that we expect to remain at the top for several years,” the publisher said in a statement.

Battersby has since hinted that she believes she “has a very good chance” of of breaking the one-minute barrier, a move that would surely see her enter the history books alongside Rod Plunger, a Dubai expat who in 2007 spent 2.34 minutes in a UK public house before mentioning the high cost of beer in the UAE, and Logan Erinsborough, an Australian who in 2010 managed to survive 4.01 hours in Doha before hiring a maid to clean his flat.