My records are odd, offbeat and arguably pointless, but compared to many of my peers they are totally mundane. When I first wrote the proposal for this book, my agent asked me to make it more colourful, specifically suggesting that I select half a dozen really outlandish records that would shock, amaze and/or cause rib-breaking laughter among the editors considering buying my work. Surprisingly, this turned out to be the most difficult component of my proposal. Because singling out six Guinness World Records as especially absurd is like being asked to pick six famous people to illustrate the history of civilization. Is the attempt to break the elapsed time record for wearing a full suit of armour - while riding in an aeroplane - more illustrative of odd nuances than the creative loophole used by the mayor of a Spanish city, which, after coming up literally miles short in its attempt to create the world’s largest sausage, set about convincing the book’s staff to create a special category just for ‘largest chorizo sausage’? Is stuffing one’s mouth with ten large, poisonous and very much alive rattlesnakes more shocking than eating an entire aeroplane ground into metal filings? Which is more impressive: growing the world’s longest beard, which took years, or growing the longest ‘beard of bees’, done in just minutes by a 68-year-old Ohio beekeeper who used a queen in a tiny box strapped below his jaw to attract a staggering 17,500 bees onto his chin? Bringing to mind the timeless debate of quantity versus quality, did the 14,718 Japanese record holders all drinking tea together outdo the largest gathering of people dressed as gorillas, a scant 637 participants in London’s Great Gorilla Fun Run? Perhaps my only easy choice was Germany’s Rudy Horn, who won me over with his panache. When Horn set the record for Most Teacups Caught On Head While Unicycling, he threw six teacups and saucers - with his feet - catching and balancing them on his head and, lest we forget, all while riding a unicycle. But the stylish Horn was not done: after finishing his successful record, his toes emphatically added a teaspoon and a lump of sugar to the collection on his head. If his was the only feat involving multiple esoteric skills put together in a seemingly impossible combination, my choices would have been easy, but there are dozens, or hundreds, in each ever-changing edition of the book.
How did it ever come to this? How did the Guinness book, which started life as a stoic academic work intended to be as sexy as a dictionary or encyclopaedia, suddenly become, much to the surprise of its authors, a runaway best seller and eventually THE runaway best seller of all time? How did it morph from reference almanac into an interactive cultural icon that tens of thousands of people would devote enormous amounts of energy, time, money and sometimes even their lives to ‘get into’? Why did it spawn myriad television shows, museums, copycats and spin-offs? Why is it so universally beloved, its appeal effortlessly crossing linguistic, religious and cultural borders? Why is the world of record breaking so fascinating to readers and so obsessive for record breakers? These are the questions that fuelled my journey inside the world’s most famous record book, bringing me face to face with some of its greatest personalities, and I will share the answers I found in the upcoming pages.
1 Meet Ashrita, Record Breaker for God
Some things in life are best left unexplained. Ashrita Furman is one of them. This man is an athletic phenomenon whose ability is exceeded only by his imagination.
- JUST FOR THE RECORD (AUSTRALIAN TELEVISION)
I’m trying to show others that our human capacity is unlimited if we can believe in ourselves. I hope that after reading this you are inspired to attempt some feat of your own. The particular event is unimportant as long as it gives you the opportunity to dance on the edge of your capacity. But be prepared - the benefits could be both illuminating and far reaching.
- ASHRITA FURMAN, IN HIS ONLINE BLOG
For proof of the old adage ‘truth is stranger than fiction’, one need look no further than Ashrita Furman. If Ashrita did not exist, the marketing folks at Guinness World Records would have to invent him - but even the most imaginative ad person could not conjure up a character like Ashrita, who has now been intimately involved with the book for far longer than any of its staff. In the 30 years since he began breaking Guinness World Records, the men who invented the book have all passed away, its editors have come and gone, the book itself has been bought and sold and sold again, and throughout all of these changes, during the Age of Ashrita it has become the best-selling copyrighted book in world history, and by some accounts the second most widely read book of all time - behind only the Bible.
Fortunately for the more than 110 million readers who have purchased a copy of the Guinness World Records, Ashrita does exist, and no one in the book’s half-century has had the kind of impact on its pages that he has or has done more to spread its gospel. Furman was once just like the millions of other adolescents who buy the book every year and have made it an annual New York Times best seller for decades. Like his peers, Ashrita studied its pages, and pored over images that are now iconic to generations of readers: pictures of the tallest and shortest and fattest men and women, those with the longest beards, moustaches and fingernails. Like most kids, Ashrita dreamt of being in its pages, but unlike most kids he has lived out that dream to epic proportions. After a life-changing revelation, Ashrita got his own picture into the book in 1979 and has never slowed down since, continuing to get into Guinness at a frenetic pace with increasingly bizarre feats of stamina, strength and creativity. Ashrita Furman is ‘The Book’ taken to its logical, if such a word can used in the same breath as Guinness World Records, extreme, the mother of all record breakers. Paradoxically, he began as a contemporary reflection of the book, part of its target audience, and 30 years later, the book has become a contemporary reflection of Ashrita: its focus has dramatically turned towards him and his kin, featuring more and more self-invented records, which in many cases seem as difficult to think up as to execute. More than anyone else, Ashrita helped turn the Guinness World Records book from something people simply read to something tens of thousands of people each year strive to get into, and he has done so with his own unique and appealing style. By taking every child’s fascination with the book and marrying this passion to the fervour of a religious zealot, then sprinkling in his sense of humour and showmanship, this soft-spoken man from Queens, New York, has become nothing less than the greatest Guinness record holder of all time.
Yet despite all his success, he remains a humble servant of God. “ People magazine called me to be on their ‘50 most eligible bachelors’ list,” Ashrita, who has taken a pledge of celibacy, told the New York Times. “I told them, ‘There’s only one problem: I don’t date.’” The celibate vegetarian has also never driven a car (though he holds a record for pushing one). He has lived in the same apartment, with few possessions, for most of the last 30 years. Even his stack of Guinness World Records certificates, the largest such collection outside of the company’s headquarters, sits on the floor of his wardrobe in a modest pile. The only one he has on display is his 100th, a special certificate the book made him to honour the accomplishment, the only one of its kind ever printed.
“Ashrita is by far the most prolific record breaker,” Stewart Newport told the New York Times. Newport is the book’s long-time Keeper of the Records, the lofty