27th August: Guinness Book of World Records

On this date in 1955 Guinness Book of World Records was first published. Here are ten things you may not know about Guinness World Records:

1. It's a record breaker in itself. It's the best selling book in the world, aside from the Bible and the Quran, and has been produced in 37 languages. As well as holding the record for the best selling copyright book, it also holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Libraries.
2. The first edition, which took about 13 weeks to produce, was intended to be a free leaflet given away in pubs in the UK and Ireland – but demand was so great they made it into a book.
3. It all started with a quiz question nobody could answer. Sir Hugh Beaver, the marketing director of Guinness, asked the question at an Irish shooting party in 1951. The question was, what is the fastest game bird in Europe? Nobody knew, even after combing through a whole library of books about game birds. If only there was a reference work which answered all these sorts of questions, thought Beaver. This inspired him to contact a London fact finding agency to work on that very project. By the way, the answer to the question is the Red Grouse.
4. The names of the people running the fact finding agency may well be familiar to you – they were none other than Norris and Ross McWhirter. The story goes that during their interview, they were asked which language had the least irregular verbs, and without hesitation, gave the correct answer, and got the job. By the way, the answer is Turkish.
5. While it did originally belong to the Guinness brewery, the book of records has been sold several times. In 2001, Guilane Entertainment bought it – they also own the rights to Thomas the Tank Engine. HIT entertainment, owners of Bob the Builder, bought it in 2002. At time of writing it's owned by Jim Pattison Group, who bought it in 2008. They also own Ripley's Believe It Or Not.
6. There is a record for having the most records in the Guinness Book of World Records. The record holder is Ashrita Furman from New York, who has broken nearly 200 records. They tend to be quite wacky things like the tallest mountain climbed on stilts, and the tallest object balanced on someone's chin.
7. About 1,000 people a week apply to be included in the book of world records. Only about 8% of them actually get in. Most lack evidence for their claim, or are claiming something that doesn't count as a record, like being able to lick their elbow.
8. Evidence can take the form of video, photos, press clippings, credit card receipts or independent witness statements. It's not always necessary for a representative of Guinness World Records to be there in person.
9. If you want to set a record for anything to do with food, like the world's biggest Cake, for example, Guinness World Records will require that, after it has been measured, the cake will be distributed and actually eaten. But only after it has been measured. Iran once tried to set a record for the world's biggest Sandwich, but failed because people started eating it before the measurement had taken place.
10. What do you think Jonathan Lee Riches did when he heard he was about to be named the world's most litigious man by Guinness World Records? He tried to sue them, of course. However, Guinness World records denied they were going to publish any such record, and in any case, the courts were getting so fed up of Riches trying to sue wacky things like Hitler, the dwarf planet Pluto, the Eiffel Tower and the Ming Dynasty that he'd been banned from issuing frivolous lawsuits.

See details of all my books

Browse other topics I've covered in this blog - HERE.

Like my Facebook page for news of Topical Ten posts posts on my writing blog, a weekly writing quote and news of upcoming publications