Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book

Getting into Guinness: One man’s longest, fastest, highest journey inside the world’s most famous record book
Larry Olmsted

Getting Into Guinness is the hilarious true story of record breaking attempts, how record obsession has become a global phenomenon, the weird and wonderful characters that set records and the history of the Guinness Book of World Records.Meet Larry Olmsted, a freelance travel and sports writer, always on the hunt for new and intriguing stories. In Spring 2003, somewhere over the North Atlantic, Larry stumbled on an article about the worldwide popularity of Guinness. Inspired by what he read, and in a bid to impress his editor, he took the drastic decision to set a record of his own and become part of the book's history. This leads Larry to break the record for the greatest distance travelled between two rounds of golf played on the same day and two years later to play poker continuously for 72 hours.After his own hilarious record attempts, Larry sets out to discover more about the vast and colourful history of the Guinness Book of World Records. This leads him to his fellow record setters with their widely varied motives for record-mania. Meet Ashrita, Record Breaker for God, who has been breaking records for 30 years and has set or broken 177 Guinness World Records in his lifetime. And Jackie 'The Texas Snakeman' Bibby, who became one of the book's all time icons by sharing a bathtub with poisonous rattlesnakes and dangling them from his mouth, and who literally puts his life on the line every time he breaks one of his rattlesnake records.

Getting Into Guinness

One Man’s Longest, Fastest, Highest Journey Inside The World’s Most Famous Record Book

Larry Olmsted

Adrian Hilton recited the Complete Works of Shakespeare (#litres_trial_promo)nonstop, going five days without sleep to earn his Guinness recognition. At a difficult point in his life, Hilton said a friend told him: “Adrian, if you give up now, you weren’t made of the right stuff in the first place.”

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY, 30 MARCH, 2007

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u7f297f18-0433-585a-b6ce-62ae1516b55a)

Title Page (#u2673009c-bce4-5353-9eeb-8224735ff66b)

Epigraph (#u2943ce5a-eaff-54bb-be11-45d0bb386fdc)

Authors Note (#u1e28513a-6aee-51c7-a3a7-5663427cfdbf)

Introduction (#ucae4d00e-b661-5849-8527-47519ff8d06c)

1 Meet Ashrita, Record Breaker for God (#u15c02a70-0a93-5af1-9912-f45b3d131089)

2 The Greatest Record of All: Birds, Beaver, Beer and Sir Hugh’s Impossible Question (#u10d42685-66a3-5fdb-9204-c3ade50e5c15)

3 Getting into Guinness Gets Personal (#u18cfb4c9-e201-58df-b5ac-73c38aaffa2b)

4 Guinnessport: Getting into Guinness Goes Prime Time (#litres_trial_promo)

5 15 Minutes of Fame (#litres_trial_promo)

6 72 Hours in Hell: Getting Back into Guinness (#litres_trial_promo)

7 The Cheese Does Not Stand Alone: Giant Food and Guinness (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Records Go Global (#litres_trial_promo)

9 The Dark Side: Guinness Records Gone Bad (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix 1 (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix 2 (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix 3 (#litres_trial_promo)

Appendix 4 (#litres_trial_promo)

Endnotes (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Author’s Note (#ulink_918480a5-9a6e-52da-b6bd-7eb11046eaae)

Guinness World Records is the current name of the book that has become the biggest international best seller of all time, and it is published by Guinness World Records Ltd, a London-based company. However, both the book’s title and ownership have changed several times throughout its history, so to make things less confusing, I offer the following brief explanation.

The book was originally titled The Guinness Book of Records and published in 1955 by Superlatives Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arthur Guinness & Sons, the huge brewing company that also made Guinness Stout. Superlatives Ltd later became known as Guinness Publishing, and its parent company as Guinness plc. Guinness plc is now part of multinational beer, wine and spirits conglomerate Diageo plc. In 1999 Guinness Publishing changed to its current name, Guinness World Records Ltd, but has also been sold and resold and is no longer associated in any way with the brewery or with Diageo, except for the common use of the word ‘Guinness’ in beer and book.

When first released in the United States, the book was briefly titled The Guinness Book of Superlatives, then quickly repackaged in a cover titled Superlatives Book of World Records, and soon became The Guinness Book of Records once again, and then The Guinness Book of World Records, which I believe is its best known and most widely used title, and what many fans still call it today. To further confuse matters, for more than 20 years the US version was produced and distributed under licence by Sterling Publishing in New York, but now it is fully owned and produced by Guinness World Records Ltd. In general, the US and UK editions will be referred to interchangeably throughout this work, though there were often minor differences between the two even in the same years, and some records were recognized only by one or the other version.

Throughout this book I use the original title, The Guinness Book of Records, the current title, Guinness World Records, and the in-between title, The Guinness Book of World Records. In addition, I use the simpler terms ‘Guinness book’, ‘book of records’ and even ‘The Book’ when referring to the same work. Likewise, in describing the records themselves (each officially called by the plural ‘Guinness World Records’), I variously referred to them as Guinness Records, Guinness World Records, records, world records, the Guinness World Record, while identifying the record holders as record holders, world record holders, and Guinness World Record holders, among other possible descriptions.

Since the company, its book, and its records now have virtually the same name, I will italicize Guinness World Records when referring to the book and leave Guinness World Records unadorned when referring to either the records themselves or the company and its editors, staffers, policies and other products. Similarly, the book’s original creator is variously referred to as Arthur Guinness & Sons, Guinness plc, and simply Guinness, as well as ‘the brewing company’.

Finally, the expressions ‘Getting into Guinness’, ‘Get into Guinness’ or variations thereof always refer to an attempt to break or set a record in a manner recognized by Guinness World Records Ltd and its book Guinness World Records, with the intention of obtaining an official certificate and/or being published in the pages of the book or listed in the company’s record database. These terms do not refer to the literal notion of getting into a beverage brewed by the company that makes Guinness Stout. While there is no longer any association between the brewer and the book, I would like to add that the stout is still excellent after all these years, and several were consumed by me, at my desk, in the writing of this work.

In my research for Getting into Guinness, I reviewed countless published sources about the origins and development of Guinness World Records and interviewed many of the more astounding Guinness World Record holders. Combining this research with my own experiences as a fan since reading it as a child, and as the holder of two records, I have attempted to recount the enthralling 50-year history of the Guinness World Records from the perspective of the record holder (or aspiring record holder) looking into a company that has fascinated him from a young age. As such, this book is not an official history of Guinness World Records, nor has it been sponsored, endorsed, authorized, or in any way supported by Guinness World Records. Indeed, Guinness World Records may at some point elect to publish such a book, and, with its extensive archives, I am sure that it would be fascinating.

LSO, November 2007

Introduction (#ulink_d1bd10f0-49ac-52ae-950a-6d51059819a1)

13 JUNE, 2004, FOXWOODS CASINO, LEDYARD, CONNECTICUT, USA

I knew I was in trouble when I got lost on my way back from the toilets. Or more accurately, I should have known I was in trouble but did not immediately make the connection, for the very same reason I went astray in the first place: I was losing my mind. Getting lost in an unfamiliar place is not surprising. Getting lost in plain sight of where you want to go, just 30 metres away, when you are intimately familiar with the route, is something altogether different. Something crazy.

It was a security guard who first noticed my plight, perhaps sympathetic to my confused and vacant expression. Or more likely he was alarmed by what could only be construed as signs of madness, signs he must have surely seen before, given his place of employment. After all, this was Foxwoods, the world’s largest casino, a self-contained city, a labyrinth of booze, bad behaviour and flashing lights that never, ever closes.

“Can I help you?” he offered suspiciously.

“I’m trying to find the poker room,” I stammered by way of reply, and then recognition dawned on his face.

“Oh, you’re the world record guy! Sure, let me show you the way!” I followed his eager footsteps, and when we were within a few steps of the table, my friend Joe Kresse rushed towards me in a panic.

“Where have you been?”

“I got lost.”