It has been claimed that Guinness Book of World Records (Now Guinees World
Records, GWR) holds the record for being the most frequently stolen
book from North American libraries. I am not surprised by this. GWR is well
qualified to be a target of book thieves. Most people will not consider GWR
worth spending their money on. But here is a book whose curiosity quotient is high
enough to tempt a few itchy hands among the reading public to filch it from the
library shelves. An example of curiosity getting the better of
good sense.
Is GWR indeed the world’s best-selling book after the Bible and the
Koran, as the publishers proudly claim in their website? According to their website, “In November 2003, Guinness World Records celebrated the publication of
its 100 millionth copy! This confirms that, excluding non-copyright works such
as the Bible and the Koran, the definitive book of world records is the world's
bestselling book…” This is a
dubious claim, not solely for the fact that they so cleverly add up the sale of
55 odd books (GWR is an annual publication). According to lincencing.biz,
GWR has sold around 115 million copies during the period 1955-2010. That is just 2 million copies for each of its annual number, that too in 40
languages. No doubt, GWR does makes a lot
of money through its spin-offs and associated franchises (TV shows,
exhibitions, museums, and such like) but most of its annual sales go to
institutions (schools and libraries) for whom such purchases are an annual
ritual.
Nevertheless, there is some fun to be derived from flicking through the
book, to marvel at the absurdity of some of the ‘achievements’ listed in the
book and the fact that someone had taken the trouble to record them. Here is a
sample of GWR records.
o
The record for keeping the most number of snails to the face
for 10 seconds. Alastair Galpin (New Zealand) achieved the record of 8
snails at The Warehouse shop in Sylvia Park, Auckland, New Zealand, on 27
October 2007.
o
The record for owning the largest number of airplane sick
bags (5468) is held by Niek K. Vermeulen of
the Netherlands.
o
The loudest purr achieved by a cat: Smokey, from Northampton UK emitted the record of 67.7 dB (LA peak) on March 25, 2011. The decibel
was measured and certified by a sound engineer in the presence of the local MP.
o
Gurning[1]: The record for ‘gurning’ (for the uninitiated, ‘gurning’ is
‘making ugly faces’) is held by Gordon Mattinson from U.K., who is the world
champion gurner.
o
To have the most people tossing coins simultaneously: An Indian, Rev.
Saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim Sing Ji Insan (India) from Sirsa, India, holds the
proud record. 12,013 is the precise number of coin tossers he mustered for the
momentous event on 15 August 2011.
The craving to get into GWR was a widely seen phenomenon in South Asia,
especially in India, during the 1970s-90s.
Those who were bitten by the GWR bug were willing to go to any extreme
for achieving the fleeting fame of being an entry on the pages of GWR, never
mind the entries did not often last the season. The candidates shut themselves
in cages filled with snakes, walked backward for large distances, stood on one
leg for days, sang non-stop for hours, ate large quantities of food, and in
general tortured themselves for the dubious distinction of being in the book.
Some of the aspirants grew nails, hair, beards, whiskers, and generally
anything that had the potential to grow on human body, and had pictures of themselves
flaunting the often repulsive growths splashed in newspapers. It is even reported
that there was a gent who boasted of not having bathed for almost all his life
time. This particular claim was reportedly
rejected by GWR because they could not verify it. The hydrophobe’s dream
remained unfulfilled.
GWR’s slogan is "We always endeavor to achieve the
highest possible standards of accuracy”. How accurate is this claim itself?
Here are some dubious examples from GWR’s accuracy department.
In their editions during 1974 - 1991 GWR
listed the Indian Singer Lata Mangeshkar as the most recorded singer, crediting
no fewer than 30,000 songs to her between 1948 and 1987. Lata Mangeshkar is arguably the greatest
female singer India has produced in the 20th century, but this record
was a gross impossibility. Most of her songs were recorded for Hindi films, and
that there weren’t more than 3500 Hindi movies during the period 1948-87. In
fact this record was contested by the supporters of Mohamed Rafi, India’s leading
male singer at that time, who claimed to have recorded more songs than Lata,
and some enterprising soul presented statistics showing Lata recorded only about
5500 songs. The dubious record was deleted by GWR in 1992.
Are the GWR guys done with this error? No.
The 2011 edition of GWR mentions Lata’s sibling Asha Bhosle, the other leading
female singer in India, with studio recordings of 11000 songs, as the most
recorded artist in music history! Now
consider this: of the 36000 movies made
in India in the last half-century (source Anmolfankaar
website), over 23000 movies are in the southern languages (Tamil, Kannada,
Malayalam, Tamil), 6500 in Hindi, and the rest in the other Indian languages. Asha’s
main turf, like her sister, is also Hindi movies, whereas there are other Indian
singers who sing prolifically in movies in all the 4 south Indian languages.
These singers have prolific outputs in devotional music, classical recordings, folk
music, and pop albums as well. You can
work out the statistics. As against,
Asha’s 11000, SP Balasubramaniam (SPB) is reported to have made close to 50000
recordings.
That takes us to movies. Which
actors have acted in most number of movies in the world in various categories? GWR lists Brahmanandam of Telugu cinema
(India) as the record holder. 897 movies!
That is a huge feat, but there are many Indian actors who have exceeded
that seemingly impossible number (Manorama with 1200 movies come to mind).
The Indian actor Prem Nazir held 4 GWR records at various times, but
for some reason these do not appear in the recent editions of GWR. . Nazir played
the lead in over 550 movies (!), and IMDb lists over 500 of these. But at
various times, GWR had listed Marion Mitchell Morrison (John Wayne) as the most
prolific actor in lead roles in movies (142 movies).
An amusing case of record number of errors per length of text is cited
by Yakov Damsky in his book the Batsford
Book of Chess Records: A 650 character entry on Chess, in which there are
over a dozen errors! Some of the errors are really baffling if not hilarious.
For example, the great Lasker’s (2nd world champion) first name is
misspelled to equate it to that of the fictional sexual adventuress Emmanuelle. And where does this bunch of
errors, representing a record in itself, appear? In the 1998 edition of
Guinness World Records!
‘The publishers stern warning that no part of the material may be
reproduced by electronic, electro-mechanical, mechanical, or any other means
without permission, is superfluous.’, writes Damsky, and rightly wonders, ‘Who
will pay genuine money for such forgery?’
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