A Fife schoolboy has taught himself to identify nearly 200 world flags – at the age of just eight.
Ben Brooks from Leven became fixated on flags after watching a YouTube video last year.
The Mountfleurie Primary pupil now hopes to beat the current Guinness World Record for the fastest time to identify all national flags.
His mum, Laura, was surprised to discover her son’s newfound talent – and says he is the talk of the town.
‘I don’t know how he’s managed it’
She told The Courier: “It was really quick; it was in the summer holidays.
“I don’t know how he’s managed to memorise them, he has some memory.
“He watched a YouTube video and that was it. He knows countries I’ve never heard of.
“There’s a flag quiz on it that has 197 flags. It goes easy, medium, hard then impossible, he gets every one right.
“The video is on for 25 minutes, I’m like, ‘How can he?'”
Laura continued: “I took him to the hairdresser a few weeks ago and I was telling Rod the hairdresser about it.
“He said that he was going to test him.
“He showed him three flags: the first was Mauritius and the second was Ethiopia.
“Ben straight away said, ‘This is easy, give me a hard one’.
“Rod then found a hard one and showed me it first. I had no idea what it was.
“He showed Ben and he said, ‘Laos’.
“I asked him where it was and he said, ‘It’s near Thailand’. It’s amazing.”
Fife boy shows off flag-guessing talent
Laura says Ben can even draw the flags and colour them in correctly.
The family hope that Ben could even make an appearance in Guinness World Records.
According to its website – which states that “records change on a daily basis and are not immediately published online” – the fastest time to identify all 193 national flags flown by members of the United Nations is two minutes and 55 seconds.
It was achieved by Adam Saeed, from Bahrain, in August 2023.
Laura said: “I’ve laminated a picture of 204 flags for him.
“He wanted to know what the world record was for someone who can identify all the world flags.
“Ben stands far enough away so he can see the flags but cannot possibly read any writing.
“I set the timer on my phone and he goes from start to finish with over 200 flags. I’ve also had him do it in reverse.
“I saw there was a boy from Bahrain who was able to identify 193 flags in two minutes and 55 seconds – Ben said that he had more flags.
“I had him standing back so he couldn’t read what country it was, and he did it in two minutes and 40 seconds.
“I was like, oh my goodness, we should contact Guinness World Records but my husband said that it’s only out once a year.
“My dad said he should definitely get some recognition.”
Conversation