What do you do on a typical day as a Guinness World Records manager? We receive about 1000 applications a week, and I'm part of the team that replies to them. We investigate their claim to see whether we can recognise their suggestion. We have lots of theoretical conversations about bizarre topics. What sort of bizarre topics? One conversation we had recently was about how to standardise the record for the most spears caught from a spear gun in l minute, while underwater. The most spears caught from a speargun? Really? Yes. Caught underwater. The current record is held by a guy in Australia who is famous for having fast reflexes. I'm often brought in as the technical guy to work out how to measure something a bit unusual, like this speargun record. We need to standardise a set of conditions for all record attempts - in this case the speed of the spear -to be fair to future applicants, and to try to remove the possibility of someone gaining an advantage by bending the rules. You become an expert in some very niche areas.
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