[originaltext]L— Liu Feifei, host of Dialogue on CCTV—9R—Alistair Richards, Ch

L— Liu Feifei, host of Dialogue on CCTV—9
R—Alistair Richards, Chief Operating Officer of Guinness World Records
L: Welcome to our show. Let’s begin with the story of Guinness World Records. How did this Records come into being?
R: The Guinness World Records book came into being about fifty years ago. In 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of the then Guinness Brewery was out doing some shooting of birds in his great country estate in Ireland. He went into an argument with one of his friends as to what was the fastest game bird in Europe. And later he decided that there should be some book of statistics which would stop this type of argument. He approached two statisticians and writers, the McWhirter twins, Norris and Ross McWhirter, and their office in central London, and asked them to develop the first Guinness World Records book, which they duly did.
L: That’s funny. I mean, is that kind of related to the British personality that they like to talk about fine points and argue to a certain point where they need to verify the information with some statistical background?
R: I don’t know if it’s British but you’re probably right. I think it’s true to some degree of the male mind. For example, I think lots of boys and men love statistics and love competition and love comparisons. I mean it’s grown out a bit more since then. The book is sold in a hundred countries around the world. We do about three million books a year. So it seems to have connected with something that all types of people can relate to.
L: Back in the 1950s, how long did it take for the first Records book to be put together?
R: I think he put it together pretty quickly, between probably eight months and two years.
L: How was he able to amass all this statistical information?
R: At the time he used it from the existing material. So what he did was put together the most comprehensive in terms of the most categories covered. He put together the ultimate facts--the highest, the lowest, the shortest, the fastest in as many different categories as he could. And he would have used the books that were published. They did the research, just the two of them, Norris McWhirter and Ross McWhirter.
L: How many different categories are there in your book today?
R: There are about fourteen or fifteen categories.
L: Are there sub-categories within the main categories?
R: There are. I mean you could talk about the human body. And we may talk about the most pierced women, for example, which in fact is 1,903. I met the Brazilian lady about three weeks ago. She now runs a Brazilian restaurant in Edinburgh, Scotland. So there are those types of records and there are records about weight, records about strength and endurance. So each category is quite broad in terms of the number of different records that could fall underneath it.
L: You seem to suggest that those people are after fame or publicity. But tangibly--does this lead to wealth?
R: In some instances. What somebody could be good at doing to get a Guinness World Record is good enough for them to, perhaps, travel around the world doing it in exhibitions. Guinness World Records also makes TV programs in about ten countries and we sell TV programs in 76 countries around the world. So some- times people who get in the book can also get on the TV show. What happens is that if another TV program sees an individual who has got a Guinness World Record on our TV show, they might want to put him on their TV show. And it can sort of build from there. So they can become famous. It’s not the primary purpose for which we put the book together. But it’s one of the nice byproducts sometimes for people.
L: You come out with a new edition of the Guinness World Records every year?
R: We do. And we have our database over 50 years. We’ve got 40,000 records in our computer files. But we only put about 3,200 records in the book every year. And about 40~ of the records are brand-new every year. And also there are about 450 pictures in the book and all of those are new. So there’s a new book every year.
L: What do you think it’s mostly referenced for?
R: It’s used on two levels. It’s used for entertainment, which is a lot about what people can do as individuals or teams, but also about what teams can do. But the book has got a lot of strong statistics about the ultimates in nature, about mountains, about rivers, about lakes, the biggest, the smallest, the highest altitude, the deepest, a lot about science and technology. So children will use those a lot for their school projects.
L: I see. It’s got practical values in addition to the fun aspect. Speaking of the fun aspect, if I wanted to get in- to the Guinness World Records, how would I go about doing that, how can I find out what it is that I need to do to get in there and how this process gets verified?
R: In China there’s a very specific process. You approach the Liaoning Educational Press either through the website or emailing them, writing them or telephoning them, and they will help you fill out an application and they will do the translation into English. That application comes to us in London. We will then first put it through what we call a CRN process and our researchers. If you haven’t attempted a Guinness World Re- cord, we will give you a set of guidelines. You will then perform the activity, whatever it is, the record- breaking event. And you will make sure that you collect the evidence in the way that the guidelines stipulate. The guidelines and the evidence will then be sent via the Liaoning Educational Press to us in London. Our researchers will then verify them. And if all the criteria be met, you will have won a Guinness World Record. We will send you a certificate, we’ll put you on the database, and it could mean that you then appear in the next year’s book, if not the next year’s, it could be the year after’s book. And if it’s a particular visual type of record, you may end up on some of the Guinness World Records TV programming anywhere around the world.