‘We witnessed him actually set a world record’ – Guinness World Records
Arthur got the lowdown on everything from professional burping to Curly Wurly stretching for Young Critics as Guinness World Records visited Lichfield Festival.
To get a Guinness World Record is to do something never done before. Records range from things like most tattoos in the world, to having the largest group of dinosaur poos to be owned. On July 15th, Editor-in-Chief of Guinness World Records, Craig Glenday, visited the Lichfield Festival and described the weird and wonderful records he has witnessed and those documented in the annually published Guinness Book of World Records.
Craig said that only 5% of the 40,000 applications for records get accepted per year, that’s around 38,000 applications that get rejected. Records must fulfil three criteria: is it significant? Is it breakable? Is it verifiable?
Records have to be significant, because otherwise- what’s the point? The example Glenday used for a significant record was Buzz Aldrin being the first person to wee on the moon. Craig stated that he gets lots of applicants with silly, non-significant records e.g. “Fastest time to fart the alphabet” or (his personal favourite) “Most gravel from Celene Dion’s driveway stuffed up a nose”. As you can see, these records are not significant at all! That’s the reason why they weren’t accepted, the Editor-in-Chief said.
Another requirement from Glenday’s list was that they had to be breakable. Records must be breakable so that people can try and set a new one. “First person to…” applicants are accepted only if they have extreme significance, otherwise, they get rejected. Why? Because they can’t be broken.
A verifiable record is a record that has been confirmed by qualified officials so that GWR know that it has actually happened, or know how long something took, or know how big something was etc. Craig shared a story about the world’s longest sandwich. Before they could measure it, people from the audience stormed up onto the stage and ate it. Nobody knew how long it was, so GWR didn’t know if it would have been the world’s longest sandwich, so it never broke the record.
Craig also brought some guests with him. His first guest was Paul Hunn, who holds the record for the longest career as a professional burper. A horrified audience looked on as volunteers (2 enthusiastic children) were brought on stage for a fun burping competition as Paul explained his special way of burping.
Another record holder was brought on stage, Paddy Doyle, who holds the most world records for a British person. Then three more volunteers attempted to break a record there and then (“Most teabags thrown into a mug in one minute by an under 16”) – they weren’t successful. Next, we were joined by Henry for the finale. Henry is a school-aged student and an origami enthusiast. We witnessed him actually set a world record: He set “Quickest time to make three origami frogs” with an extremely speedy 1 minute and 50.4 seconds.
Before the event was finished, Craig revealed that he himself was a record breaker. He was a former Curly Wurly stretching champion before staff at GWR were restricted from breaking records.
Personally, I think this event was amazing and Craig encouraged us all to go out there and become record breakers ourselves.
By Arthur B
Arthur is in Year 7 at school. He loves playing guitar and trumpet. He is other hobbies include reading and scouts. His favourite subject at school is music. Terry Pratchett is his favourite author as he likes to read fantasy and science fiction. He loves going to see live events, especially music and plays.
If you’re aged 11-18 and would like to be a festival reviewer, applications will open soon for Young Critics – find out more on our website https://lichfieldfestival.org/aspire/young-critics/