The Guinness beer – records connection
Yesterday, Jacob and I went to the Durham Country library and he got the current Guinness Book of World Records. So I started wondering what the connection was between the book of records and beer. Wikipedia to the rescue:
On 4 May 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the managing director of the Guinness Breweries, went on a shooting party in North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford, Ireland. He became involved in an argument over which was the fastest game bird in Europe, the koshin golden plover or the grouse. That evening at Castlebridge House he realised that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe’s fastest game bird.
Beaver knew that there must be numerous other questions debated nightly in pubs in Britain and Ireland, but there was no book with which to settle arguments about records. He realised then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove popular.
So the Guinness book is really the precursor to the KGB answers service …