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Guinness Book of Records 2015 MacMillan $49.99
Question One:
As a 15-year veteran of Guinness World Records, what is the strangest thing you've ever seen?It is difficult to beat the experience of meeting one of the world's tallest people. Walking along the road and turning to talk to somebody, only to have your eyes lining up with the belt on their jeans, is always an unforgettable moment. The realisation that at any one time there are three or four true giants walking the earth, and that you have never really known the true meaning of the word ‘tall', is a wonderful one.
Question two: The Guinness World Records are celebrating their 60th Anniversary, what are some of the most memorable moments you have experienced as an official record adjudicator?There have also been moments that have been frightening, fun, inspirational or mystifying. I remember being quite touched when I was invited to the world's highest wedding. It took place on an aircraft 41,000 feet above the North Island of New Zealand. Five couples were married on that Fiji Airways flight and while I originally thought they were probably doing it for a laugh, I realised very quickly that they were very much in the moment. There was an enormous amount of emotion and I was honoured to be a guest.
I have been driven around the night-time streets of London on the world's fastest furniture, a three-seater lounge that does 140 km/hour. I have stood on the landing ramp at Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne when Robbie Maddison landed the world's longest motorcycle jump of 106.9 metres. And much to the envy of many of my mates, I have counted the women in the world's longest bikini parade on a beach in Surfers Paradise. Yes, this job certainly has its moments.
But it is also a job that has taught me a great deal about the human spirit and about human nature in general. People often claim, for instance, that some of the records accepted by Guinness World Records are little bit silly. But what we celebrate at Guinness World Records in the acceptance of various record categories is the unfettered and blissfully healthy imagination of children.
As we become adults we lose our sense of imagination. We begin to take seriously only the things that marketing people tell us to. So the sport of butterfly swimming, despite its general lack of practical use, is something that we should take seriously. The sport of dressage, essentially the act of teaching a horse to dance, is well respected. But if I wished to teach my goat to dance, I would be looked upon as a madman.
From the fastest window washer, to the person who can catch the most arrows out of the air in 60 seconds, to the woman in Christchurch who can squeeze her body through the head of a tennis racquet in more ways than anybody else, these people are all worth recognising. Take marketing and cynicism and all of the other biases away in order to see things through a completely objective lens and you quickly realise their skills, talents and motivations are just as worthy of recognition as the Olympic athletes we all honour.
In my experience, as people come out of middle-age and enter their later years their imagination once again becomes healthy and fertile. This is when we begin to see people discovering how great they can truly be. In New Zealand (on Waiheke Island) there is a group of people in a dance troupe known as the Hip Operation Crew. They range in age from 67 to 95 and are the world's oldest dance troupe. I find them marvellously inspirational.
The purpose of the Hip Operation Crew, you see, is to create a bridge between the elderly and the teenagers in the community. And so the elderly learn to be hip-hop dancers, and as a result the younger people see that their culture is being admired and respected. This is record-breaking at its greatest. It is being used for a purpose that will indeed improve society. And it is no surprise to me at all that it comes out of my favourite country in the world.
Record breaking brings out the best in people - that is what it is all about. That's why I will always be glad that Guinness World Records, now in its 60th year, exists to recognise those that become their best.
To enter the draw to win a copy of this book CLICK HERE Draw closes January 8th 2014.
Open to NZ residents only.
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Question One:
As a 15-year veteran of Guinness World Records, what is the strangest thing you've ever seen?It is difficult to beat the experience of meeting one of the world's tallest people. Walking along the road and turning to talk to somebody, only to have your eyes lining up with the belt on their jeans, is always an unforgettable moment. The realisation that at any one time there are three or four true giants walking the earth, and that you have never really known the true meaning of the word ‘tall', is a wonderful one.
Question two: The Guinness World Records are celebrating their 60th Anniversary, what are some of the most memorable moments you have experienced as an official record adjudicator?There have also been moments that have been frightening, fun, inspirational or mystifying. I remember being quite touched when I was invited to the world's highest wedding. It took place on an aircraft 41,000 feet above the North Island of New Zealand. Five couples were married on that Fiji Airways flight and while I originally thought they were probably doing it for a laugh, I realised very quickly that they were very much in the moment. There was an enormous amount of emotion and I was honoured to be a guest.
I have been driven around the night-time streets of London on the world's fastest furniture, a three-seater lounge that does 140 km/hour. I have stood on the landing ramp at Calder Park Raceway in Melbourne when Robbie Maddison landed the world's longest motorcycle jump of 106.9 metres. And much to the envy of many of my mates, I have counted the women in the world's longest bikini parade on a beach in Surfers Paradise. Yes, this job certainly has its moments.
But it is also a job that has taught me a great deal about the human spirit and about human nature in general. People often claim, for instance, that some of the records accepted by Guinness World Records are little bit silly. But what we celebrate at Guinness World Records in the acceptance of various record categories is the unfettered and blissfully healthy imagination of children.
As we become adults we lose our sense of imagination. We begin to take seriously only the things that marketing people tell us to. So the sport of butterfly swimming, despite its general lack of practical use, is something that we should take seriously. The sport of dressage, essentially the act of teaching a horse to dance, is well respected. But if I wished to teach my goat to dance, I would be looked upon as a madman.
From the fastest window washer, to the person who can catch the most arrows out of the air in 60 seconds, to the woman in Christchurch who can squeeze her body through the head of a tennis racquet in more ways than anybody else, these people are all worth recognising. Take marketing and cynicism and all of the other biases away in order to see things through a completely objective lens and you quickly realise their skills, talents and motivations are just as worthy of recognition as the Olympic athletes we all honour.
In my experience, as people come out of middle-age and enter their later years their imagination once again becomes healthy and fertile. This is when we begin to see people discovering how great they can truly be. In New Zealand (on Waiheke Island) there is a group of people in a dance troupe known as the Hip Operation Crew. They range in age from 67 to 95 and are the world's oldest dance troupe. I find them marvellously inspirational.
The purpose of the Hip Operation Crew, you see, is to create a bridge between the elderly and the teenagers in the community. And so the elderly learn to be hip-hop dancers, and as a result the younger people see that their culture is being admired and respected. This is record-breaking at its greatest. It is being used for a purpose that will indeed improve society. And it is no surprise to me at all that it comes out of my favourite country in the world.
Record breaking brings out the best in people - that is what it is all about. That's why I will always be glad that Guinness World Records, now in its 60th year, exists to recognise those that become their best.
To enter the draw to win a copy of this book CLICK HERE Draw closes January 8th 2014.
Open to NZ residents only.