The 2012 edition of the Guinness Book of World Records has just been released, and - huzzah! - the record for "Longest Beard - Living Male" now belongs to Mr. Sarwan Singh of Surrey, BC. Mr. Singh's record of facial hirsuteness was claimed with a floor-tickler that measures 2.37 metres (or almost 8 feet).

In truth, Singh locked down the beard record on March 4, 2010, during a taping of the Italian TV show Lo Show dei Record (we'll let you figure out what that means in English); the 2012 printing of the Guinness Book, however, is the first physical record of Singh's feat.

The previous record-holder in the beard length category was coincidentally held by another, unrelated Singh. Shamsher Singh of Punjab, India won a place in the stout-sponsored record book with a beard that measured 1.83 metres (about 6 feet) in 1977.

But neither man has anything on the king of whiskers, Hans Langseth of Norway.

Langseth's beard predated the Guinness Book of World Records, but when he died in 1927, his beard was a whopping 18.6 feet long. In 1967, Langseth's grandson Russell donated a 17.5-foot section of the beard - which had been cut from his deceased grandfather's face and saved in a trunk, as families do - to the good people at the Smithsonian.

Who seem to have enjoyed playing with it.