万花筒 2009-09-22&09-24 世界第一高男的辛酸生活（在线收听）

Imagine a world where nothing fits, where ceilings are too low, cars are too small, and buying a jacket off the rack is but a distant dream. Welcome to the world of Sultan Kosen, the tallest man on earth.

I was around ten years old when I first noticed that I was taller. I was 175 centimeters at the time. My family noticed that I was getting taller. My family said, oh well, Sultan is going to be a really big man. And even at that time, I was about 10 centimeters taller than my mother and my father.

It turned out there was a medical explanation for his exceptional size. A tumour had formed on the part of the brain that regulates growth. It was eventually removed, but not before he had grown to a staggering eight foot one. That's about four inches taller than China's Bao Xishun, the previous holder of the Guinness World Record. Everything Sultan wears has to be custom made, right down to the shoes on these, the world's biggest feet.

Well, I have to tell you this is the largest size we do. (Right.) I doubt this is gonna be nothing near.

Just give you an idea of the scale here; I'm actually six foot three, six foot four on a good day. And I've always thought of myself as fairly tall. But as you can see in Sultan's presence, he is absolutely enormous. He is eight foot one. It is a very, very strange feeling being in his presence. And as you can see, he absolutely dwarfs me.

But Sultan's height isn't just an inconvenience; it's also taken a toll on his work life and his love life. A 27 years old, he's never had a full time job or a girlfriend. But he's hoping that will change soon. His new place in the Guinness World Record book has catapulted him from relative obscurity in his Native Turkey into sudden fame and a world tour. He says he's enjoying all the attention, which is just as well. Wherever he goes, people stop, sometimes point and stare, and ask to have their pictures taken beside him. So does all the fuss ever make him wish he was a more average size?

I used to want to be a lot shorter. But now I have accepted that this is my height. And I'm happy with it, said with arguably the biggest smile in the world.

Don Riddell, CNN, London.