Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! === ''Guinness World Records'' === The main story of the August 11, 2019, episode was [[Turkmenistan]] and its autocratic leader [[Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow]]. The last portion of the segment centered around Berdimuhamedow's obsession with ''[[Guinness World Records]]'', with the Turkmen capital of [[Ashgabat]] being home to the most buildings with white marble cladding, the largest indoor [[Ferris wheel]], and the largest statue of a horse's head, among others. Oliver found that ''Guinness World Records'' received sums of money ranging from US$12,000 to US$500,000 from companies and authoritarian nations to set records for publicity. He ended the show with a 600 square foot [[marble cake]] adorned with a picture of Berdimuhamedow falling from a horse; he had requested a Guinness adjudicator to certify it as the world's largest marble cake, a record previously set by [[Betty Crocker]] in Saudi Arabia in 2017.<ref>{{Cite web |date=September 27, 2017 |title=A gift 'fresh from the heart' in Saudi Arabia |url=https://blog.generalmills.com/2017/09/a-gift-fresh-from-the-heart-in-saudi-arabia/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190815165112/https://blog.generalmills.com/2017/09/a-gift-fresh-from-the-heart-in-saudi-arabia/ |archive-date=August 15, 2019 |website=General Mills |language=en-US |access-date=August 15, 2019}}</ref> Guinness refused, stating that because their brand was "aligned with kids and families", they would not send an adjudicator; Oliver mockingly commented that he did not "run a brutal enough dictatorship to meet Guinness World Records' high ethical standards". Oliver claimed that Guinness offered to certify it after the fact only if he signed an agreement not to criticize their practices on the show, which Oliver dismissed as "ridiculous".<ref>{{Cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E |title=Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver |date=August 11, 2019 |last=HBO |access-date=August 15, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190815170404/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E&gl=US&hl=en |archive-date=August 15, 2019 |url-status=live |via=YouTube}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine |title=John Oliver Bakes Very Large Cake to Annoy Turkmenistan |url=https://time.com/5648682/john-oliver-turkmenistan-cake/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190814150445/https://time.com/5648682/john-oliver-turkmenistan-cake/ |archive-date=August 14, 2019 |magazine=Time |language=en-US |access-date=August 12, 2019}}</ref> Guinness called Oliver's allegations "false and unfair", claiming that they did not send an adjudicator because they felt the cake was specifically for the purpose of mocking a record holder, stating it was their policy "not to partake in any activities which may belittle their achievements or subject them to ridicule".<ref>{{Cite web |date=August 12, 2019 |title=Guinness World Records on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver |url=https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2019/8/guinness-world-records-on-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver-586398/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190813023105/https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2019/8/guinness-world-records-on-last-week-tonight-with-john-oliver-586398/ |archive-date=August 13, 2019 |website=Guinness World Records |language=en-GB |access-date=August 12, 2019}}</ref> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself, or copied it from a public domain or similar free resource (see Christianpedia:Copyrights for details). Do not submit copyrighted work without permission! Cancel Editing help (opens in new window) Discuss this page