Peter Lynn is furious version française     " Guinness Book of Records has made a huge blunder by claiming a Chinese kite is now the world's largest" Ashburton kitemaker Peter Lynn claims. Mr Lynn has held the world record for the largest kite for the past 10 years, but Guinness is now naming a kite made by a Chinese cigarette factory as the largest. Mr Lynn said the book had included the tail area of the new kite, which was ridiculous. It was not general practice to do this, as kites could have very long tails. "We think that's stupid, you don't count the tail as part of a kite because people have had tails over one kilometre long.."       "If the rules are going to get changed in that direction we can play that game pretty well - it's war," he said.." Peter Lynn is furious that the Guinness Book of Records has changed the way it's judging the world's largest Kite.   Nevertheless, even if the tail was included, Mr Lynn's largest kite - the Mega-Bite - would still hold the record anyway. Mr Lynn's sentiments towards Guinness Book of World Records editors are not too friendly at the moment. "Bugger them," he said. He said he had tried several times to get hold of them, but the only way was via the Guinness website, and those wanting a reply to their inquiries had to pay $250. "We say why should we be paying because it's not exactly our problem."           " I think they're probably just stupid, that would be one thing. Secondly, maybe they've had a lot of staff changes, don't know what they've done in the past, maybe they didn't think about it, maybe they got scammed, maybe it is a deliberate decision, maybe they have made a considered decision that tails should be counted. Who knows?." The new record had been listed in the book without any consultation with either himself or the international kite world committee, which had previously deemed the Mega-Bite the largest. Mr Lynn believed his dilemma would be resolved in the long term as the truth was realised. The MegaBite is officially the worlds largest kite. The Guiness Record certificate was issued for an officially observed flight of 22minute 57 seconds at the Bristol Kite Festival on 7 Sept. 1997. Total flat area is 933m2. "effective" flat area, taking off the whiskers and the tails and a proportion of the "legs" is about 680m2       What are you going to do? " Sit here and sulk " (laughs) " I've got a lot of fabric over here in this store, so we can escalate a fair bit. if the competition is hotting up, well things are going to get very big.." Meanwhile, he has designed a new kite, to be even larger than the Mega-Bite. The 1000 square metre kite will be a large American flag and has been designed for flying at American functions.         YAHOO News Australian and New Zealand - December 2003