Not by me…

Almost everybody has heard about Guinness Book of Records or Guinness World Records. The latter is the current name used and it replaced the former some years ago. However, not everybody knows how the idea for a book containing weird and less records actually was born. To some of you it might be a surprise. The idea for the book was born in the 1950s. The managing director of Guinness Breweries had an argument with other people about the faster European game bird. None of the sides could prove their point and this led to the conclusion that similar discussion must take place in most of the watering holes across the country. It must be frustrating for the sides involved not to know the right answer. Keep in mind that at that time there was no internet or smartphones to ask the question and get an answer instantly (and for those interested: the concept of a network of computers was already present, however it was in its early stages. And as with majority of revolutionary ideas its initial use was limited to scientific and military applications. The internet itself is a network of INTERconnected NETworks and came to existence some time later).

Back to the argument: the participants thought (and I guess they were right) that after having some beers (or other beverages – the choice is very wide at some establishments) you may come up with a existential question like: I wonder which animal sleeps the longest? or how tall is the tallest man? or how many burgers can you eat in 60 seconds? etc.

And you can’t find answers to those crucial questions – well, at least you couldn’t if you lived in the 1950s. So these guys came up with an idea to make a register of all these records of human achievements and interesting facts about the natural world. And the name Guinness was pretty obvious…

Nowadays the book lists thousands of records in various categories. The city of Tagaytay has its record holder too:

Puzzle Mansion entrance

The place is called The Puzzle Mansion. Probably because it has lotsa lotsa puzzles?

Guinness certification

There are puzzles of all shapes and sizes:

The variety of the puzzles is astonishing. Some of them have labels which state how many pieces does a puzzle consist of and how long it took to complete it. The Puzzle Mansion has a puzzle made of 33600 pieces. I don’t know how long it took to get it right. But that could be an achievement on its own, maybe even worth including in the Guinness World Records.