june-2010

Monsieur Mangetout became
the fastest person ever to eat
a bicycle. And a TV. And
a supermarket trolley
Dubai) or wearing the most socks on one foot
(74, set by Alastair Galpin in Auckland), then just
calm yourself down – you need to put in a serious
amount of planning. For starters, you need to
contact Guinness World Records Ltd to make
sure the record in the last edition still stands.
Next, you have to go through a massive checklist
to see if the book will accept your successful attempt
as a record. Then you need to fi ll in an application
form to let them know, get two witnesses who aren’t
your friends, ask passers-by to witness a logbook,
and do the bloody thing. To speed up the process
you could hire an offi cial adjudicator, but attracting
media attention while you’re doing it works just
as well. Try balancing 20 spoons on your face
during a high-profi le funeral, or lifting 161lb
with your ear outside the Old Bailey at a murder
trial, for example.
How to…
J U N E / J U L Y
Do It In The Summer
The book is published every year in September, so
timing is crucial. Break a record too early and you
risk seeing it broken; break it late, and you could
miss the deadline. And avoid 9 November at all
costs – it’s the offi cial World Records Day, when
up to 100,000 people around the globe have a go.
Get 1,000 Mates To Help
If you’re not particularly talented at anything, this is
the way to go, because all you need to do is turn up
and pray that there are enough people as desperate
to get into the book as you. Pretend to be six years
old and enrol yourself in the City Montessori School
in Lucknow (the world’s largest, with 32,114 pupils
in 2008). Get 666 other mates to show up on a fi eld
and go mental with wobble boards (wresting the
title from the West Wirral Scouts). Appearing en
masse in costumes has become the record attempt
du jour – 12,965 people in Derry City are the proud
holders of the record for having the most Santa
Clauses in one place, for example. You won’t
actually get your name in, but you can always
point at a photo in the book with maximum pride.
Don’t Expect To Get In Even
If You’re Successful
Sadly, due to low attention spans, the book has
mutated from a lists publication into an illustrationheavy
tome, meaning that there isn’t space for every
offi cial record. So if you’re planning on having a go,
make sure it’ll look good on a diagram.
Dedication’s What You Need
There have been so many TV shows around the
world based on the book that Guinness World
Records claims it invented reality television.
Becoming a presenter on any of these shows
practically ensured you a place in the book.
Roy Castle, the Yorkshire-born host of the
UK’s Record Breakers, made it in an impressive
nine times, including fastest tap dance, playing the
most instruments on one song, and parascending
under the most bridges. The McWhirters were an
ever-present feature of the show, which ran for
30 series from 1972-2001, with the “Norris on
the Spot” section seeing the surviving twin
answering questions from the audience with
machine-like intensity. Only one ever stumped
him: which tree has the most leaves?
Let’s leave the last piece of advice to Mr Castle,
in the show’s iconic theme tune: “If you could lift
20 tons, if you could score 99,000 runs, the whole
sporting world would applaud it, the McWhirters,
mm-hm, they would record it.”
Oh, and by the way, both Sir Hugh and his
shooting partner were wrong. The fastest game
bird in Europe is, in fact, the wood pigeon.
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