Image shows: Farkham Hall with pride. Family associations with record breakers

Image ID: 7

The Faxe Fad Book of Records, or De FAXE FAD Bog Af Optegnelser, to give it the correct Danske title is one of the world's less well known books but has a great following in its native Denmark. To draw parallels with the products that give name to this book and its more globally recognised competitor, the Guinness Book of records, you can point to the target market of the beers. Guinness is a truly global brand, selling in vast quantities wherever there are Irish people, or even those that claim to be. Don't get me wrong, my great grandfather was a man of Cork, so I can claim all the heritage I need when standing at a bar.

Funnily enough it was great grandpa who gambled away the family home, the then Farkham Hall in Scunthorpe. This is now a BP oil refinery called Neap House, and if anyone should have sold it to BP, it should have been me. However, I digress, leaving the main point of De FAXE FAD Bog Af Optegnelser, more stories of this inveterate gambler will unfold in time...

Faxe Fad is a very popular beer in Danmark, but rarely heard of anywhere else. To cock a snook at Carlsberg and Tuborg, both of whom claim royal patronage, the Faxe slogan proudly boasts that the product is by appointment to the Great Danish People.

In a similar way, their Bog Af Optegnelser appeals mostly to Danish citizens. So "Why all these comparisons of brewery marketing strategies?" I hear you say. Well, I am proud to tell you that a friend of the Farkhams and a regular visitor to Farkham Hall is mentioned in several years' editions of this fine publication.

Under the category of Denmark's laziest man, you will find my old friend Karnt. This guy is so lazy that he has passed into popular vernacular because when asked any question at all, or to do anything at all, the only words that leave his lips are those of his name. In fact, when I say that he has been a frequent visitor to Farkham Hall, I mean he has not left since 1978! Whenever anyone askes why he doesn't go back to his beloved Aalborg, all he will say is "Karnt Bjarst". At least he is no trouble to look after!