The Current - Want to break these 70 unclaimed Guinness World Records?

Episode Date: September 10, 2025

From the tallest dog to the longest fingernails, the heaviest onion to the smallest waist, the Guinness World Records have been cataloguing and celebrating all of life's superlatives for seven decades. We explore the history and persistence of this phenomenon and speak to a restaurant owner chasing the title of longest beef kebab.

Every writer has a beginning. For Arundati Roy, it was her mother. In Mother Mary comes to me, the Booker Prize-winning author of the God of Small Things offers an intimate and inspiring account of how she became the person and writer she is, shaped by her complex relationship to the mother she describes as, My Shelter and My Storm. This is not just a memoir. It is a love story, a reckoning, and a journey into the making of one of the world's most celebrated voices.

Mother Mary comes to me by Arundati Roy. Now, wherever books are sold. This ad is brought to you by Simon and Schuster, Canada. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Is your name Johnny Cruz Buckingham? Well, if not, then you don't hold the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to burst 200 balloons with a nail. For the record, it took Mr. Buckingham from New Haven, Connecticut, 9.72 seconds to accomplish this remarkable feat. If you're looking to be the best at something in the world, you could also try to beat this. 3.1415, 9265-3-835-8-3-832, 8984, 187-1-6-9-0-3-8-8-8-4.

What is that? That is 10-year-old Alberto Aragon from Bristol, England, setting the world record for the most decimal place. of pie recalled in one minute, 280, was what he got to in 60 seconds, or you could try for a brand new record. To celebrate their 70th anniversary, Guinness World Records has released 70 unclaimed titles. Most items caught by a cat in one minute,

longest marathon playing air guitar. Fastest time to push an orange, 100 meters with your nose. I'm going to talk more about the enduring popularity of Guinness World Records, but first we're joined by Tigran, Kadafshan, the owner of Smokey's Barbecue in Windsor, Ontario.

Last week, the restaurant attempted to set the world record for the longest kebab. Teagrin, good morning. Good morning. How you doing? Well, I'm okay. The obvious question. How long was your kebab? The kebab is approximately 80 feet, give or take. 80 feet. That's a lot. That's a lot of kebab. Yeah, that's a lot of kebab. Why did you want to set a world record for the longest kebab?

Honestly, I'm just a very competitive at nature. So one day I came across Shelby's Chowarma, and they had the longest Charma wrap in the world at about 140 feet. So every year, I do a free event where I make a bunch of burgers and people come out and eat it for free, et cetera. But it takes a very long time for people to get their sandwich, you know? We can only cook so many burgers at a time. But this way, if I were to do a super long kebab wrap,

we just get to cut that up afterwards. and the kebab were up 80 foot was cleared up in about five to ten minutes and everyone was happy. It was nice to see the smiles, you know? So you thought if they could do this with the shwama, I could do this with a kebab? Basically, basically, yeah.

Like I said, I'm very competitive, so if they can do, we can do, you know? So why not? How do you go about cooking an 80-foot kebab? We started super early in the morning, I had a couple of friends come help me out. We cooked everything, like a couple hours before the evening.

then started cooking about 170 kebabs. We cooked individually, and then we got about 30 tables. We rented 30 tables, put them all together, and assembled it as a one single sandwich. So it's not like one giant piece of meat. These are like individual ones that then you stick together. Yes, but then the wrap itself was a one giant wrap because we put all these lavash brids intertwined and rolled it all together.

with help of a few people, and it took us a few minutes, but we got it done. As you're doing this, do you know, I mean, one of the things that happens is when you're cooking things, the size can change. I mean, they can shrink, meat can get smaller as it cooks. Did you think about that? Were you factoring that in? Is it like the math of setting a record? Honestly, I did, and I was anticipating to make a few more cup hours, but I was kind of running out of space to keep them cold in the fringes.

So that's why it ended up being 80 feet. I was actually aiming for more. How long did it take you to cook this? Two and a half hours of cooking. And then the preparation took a little bit longer, obviously. You got like grills everywhere and barbecues everywhere. I mean, that's a lot of cooking going on. Actually, I have a really big barbecue.

It's double-sided charcoal barbecue in the backyard. We do use that for big events. Earlier this year, we did the 1,000 people catering order. for the battery plan in Windsor. So, I mean, if we could do stuff like that, we can do anything, you know? That's the mentality. This isn't an official record.

That's your plan for next year, right? Like, this was kind of a test run so that you could set the world record for next year? Yes, yes. Not that I know what it takes to make an 80-foot kebob. I'd not have doubled it for next year and hopefully make it official.

So you're going to make a kebob that's 160 feet? Yes, yes. And the year after that, I'm going to try it again, even longer. It's like addictive. I mean, the kind of thing that you, once you start doing it, you just can't stop, right?

Exactly. Basically, yes. I mean, it sounds delicious. It's impressive, but it also just sounds delicious. Yes, yes. It's actually, it was a very cool experience for everybody on the sea. It was nice to see. Congratulations, and good luck when you go for the official record.

Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Kadovian is the only. owner of Smokey's Barbecue in Windsor, Ontario. Every writer has a beginning. For Arundati Roy, it was her mother. In Mother Mary comes to me, the Booker Prize-winning author of the God of Small Things

offers an intimate and inspiring account of how she became the person and writer she is, shaped by her complex relationship to the mother she describes as, my shelter and my storm. This is not just a memoir. It is a love story, a reckoning, and a journey into the making of one of the world's celebrated voices. Mother Mary comes to me by Arundati Roy. Available now wherever books are sold.

This ad is brought to you by Simon & Schuster, Canada. If you want to hear daily news that doesn't hurt your soul and might even be good for your soul, check out as it happens. I'm Chris Howdy. And I'm Neil Kokesal. Every day we reach people at the center of the most extraordinary stories, like the doctor who restored a patient's eyesight with a tooth. Or a musician in an orchestra that plays instruments, out of vegetables. Take the scenic route through the day's news with as it happens and you can find us wherever you get your podcasts. We want to show that everyone in the world is the best at something and we're here to measure it. That is the motto of Guinness World Records and could be kebabs

or just about anything else that they want to measure. Imogen West Nights is a writer and freelance journalist who wrote a piece for The Guardian. The headline was The Strange Survival of Guinness World Records. Imogen is in London, England. Imogen, hello to you. Hi, good morning. Cababs and more. What is it about these records that fascinate us, do you think? I think, I mean, lots of people remember the books from when they were children, right? Like, I got my first one when I was maybe eight, and they had all these kind of glossy pictures, people doing amazing things.

But I think people, yeah, as he was just saying, they like to compete, they like to believe that if they can put their mind to something, they can be the best at something, even if it seems kind of. random or a tray or something that other people wouldn't want to be the best at. I think that's a big part of it. I want to talk about those books. I remember getting those books for Christmas as well. The first book was published on the 27th of August, 1955. What were some of the records in that very first edition? So that one was, it was much less kind of flashy than the Guinness Book of Records that we know now.

It was things like the largest baby, the highest individual milk yield of a cow, highest mountains, kind of existing superlatives of the natural world. And then there were like sports things and political things. And the point of this, I mean, when the Guinness Book of Record started, what was, I said, we want to show that everyone in the world is the best at something and we're here to measure it. What was the point of this? Well, the original point was, so the managing director of the Guinness Brewery, was in Guinness the Stout, was on a hunting party in, I think, 1951.

And they were having this argument about what the fastest game bird was. And they kept arguing, they kept arguing. But none of them knew and they couldn't prove it. And then this guy, Hugh Beaver, the managing director was thinking about it a few years later. And he thought, well, I bet pubs especially, places where Guinness is sold, are full of people having arguments that they can't settle over things that are superficially kind of trivial, like what is the fastest game bird. And if we produced a book that could then go behind the bar in pubs that sell Guinness, that might be like an extra revenue stream. the company. How did that change over time? Because the books that I got when I was a kid, it wasn't about fastest birds. I just remember people who had these crazy long fingernails,

people who had needles in their heads that the person with the most piercings in their body was like horrifying and exciting to look at at the same time. Yeah, it became much more kind of, I guess, sensational. And once it existed as a company and people knew like, if I can do something really amazing, then it will go in the book. And so it's sort of, there was a kind of arms race of let's do, you know, more and more insane things in order to get records for them. And then people obviously love that stuff, you know. That's the one I really remember as well, the longest fingernails all sort of curled around on themselves. It was gnarly to look at.

You watched a world record get set. This is the record for the most consecutive cars jumped over on a pogo stick? Yes, it was five, the record at the time. And it was jumped by this guy called Tyler Phillips, who's from California, and they did it in London. They jumped over five black caps because of the London setting. And yeah, I mean, it was amazing kind of, there were lots of people from the company there. They take it pretty seriously, you know, people with their tape measures, making sure the distance between the cars is correct. And, you know, it really meant something to him to break that record.

He was very nervous beforehand. What was the atmosphere like? What did you learn why somebody would want to leap over cars on a pogo stage? Well, I think for him, he's a sort of poker champion. So it was a way for him to kind of, I guess, showcases skills in a way that's fun and unusual. In fact, he broke his own record like a year later and has now, and I'm not totally up to date. He's now done six. He's on six cars. And that is the, that's the current record. But yeah, I think it's just like an exciting way to apply your skills. Was your sense that somebody had ever done this before? Was this a record that he just created? Like, I'm going to jump over not just one car, but sorry? several cars, I'm going to see how many cars, or was he breaking a record? It's a good question. I'm not sure. I think maybe that one did not yet exist. So it could have been that Guinness came up with that record category themselves, because I think there was a sort of something that they were promoting at the time, because that is another way that records

get made. So you said earlier that they've released this like 17 new records. They do produce their own record categories, but lots of them also come from the public and then get submitted for approval or disapproval. And this is a very official thing. You can't just do this? To set the record, you have to have the officials there to sign off on this. Well, yes, it used to be that the officials had to be there in person every single time. And then the company grew and also the company shrank because the internet so sales of the book went down and they decided to kind of diversify by offering adjudication services for a fee. So now if you want someone there watching, then you have to pay like 11,000 Canadian dollars, which is quite a lot of money. Otherwise, it's still very officially.

You have to, like, videotape your thing. It has to be witnessed by two independent people, timed to assert. There's all these guidelines for each record that you get sent. And then Guinness sort of reviews the evidence before you get your certificate. In doing your research, you identified, what, four types of records? Yeah. I mean, this is just my kind of, like, personal way that I broke them down.

So there's type one, which is sort of records that are broken without being record-breaking attempts. So like the largest living animal or the most venomous viper. And then there's type two, which is sporting achievements where I guess people are trying to break records, just not specifically Guinness ones. So like fastest boxing, knockout, longest tennis match. And then there are that third type, the one you were just talking about, where it's records that kind of seem to exist in order to be records. So like, yeah, most piercings on a body or the largest toast mosaic, stuff like that. And then the fourth kind is marketing stunts. So when a company or a brand will do something like build a really,

to build a tallest pyramid out of washing machines. And then they get their brand in the book or online, certainly. The tone of your voice suggests you're not entirely impressed with that. Perhaps you're more impressed with the toast mosaic than the mountain of washing machines. I mean, I guess I'm more impressed with the toast mosaic because I don't know, just feels a little bit more natural. But I understand why brands want to do it and why the company encourages it

because, you know, they've got to make, they're not, they're not funded by anything except their own turnover as a company. And I'm certainly of the opinion that I want Guinness World Records to exist and for people to be keeping track of the like superlatives of life on earth. But there is a, I mean,

it seems odd to talk about commercialization in a story that's about something that was launched by a beer company. But there is a commercialization of this. Yeah, for sure. So they introduced this consultancy thing, their consultancy arm in 2009, because since it's like 1997, they had to generate their own money. They weren't just like a novelty arm of the beer business. And yeah, it's difficult because back when I got my first annual, those annual sold like hotcakes. And they still sell well, but not nearly as well as they did. So the consultancy is like, yeah, you have a washing machine brand. You go to Guinness and you say, hey, can you come up with a record that my company could break? that would, therefore, like, generate some publicity. In the spirit of participatory journalism, you yourself tried to set a record.

Is this not correct? It is true. It's true. When I went into their offices, they gave me a record to try that was just, like, easy to do in the office, which was longest time standing on one leg blindfold, and I was horrible at it.

I think I got up to, like, 30 seconds. It's harder than you'd think it would be. The world record for this is 31, what, am I getting this right, 31 minutes and 14? It was around that when I was trying to break it. So I discovered through various means that this was actually not that difficult to break as records go. So I was kind of trying to build up my time and I got to like 12 minutes. And then I looked it up and someone had broken it since I tried in the office.

And now it's like an hour and 12 minutes or something. And that just seemed, that's too much. You know, I have work to do. But do you understand? I mean, this is now, I mean, this company, the books are put out by a Canadian. the Jim Patterson group. Yes, the Jim Passon group, exactly. Do you understand why we are still, and it's not just your man with the giant

kebabs, but that people still want to try to break these records and that we look to see who has broken records for things that we didn't even know were possible? Yeah, I think it's just, it's a sort of way of maintaining a bit of wonder about life on earth and humanity, and I think it's really, yeah, I think it's beautiful that there are people who really care and want to maintain the veracity of a record for the world's oldest dock. Like that doesn't matter. Of course, it doesn't. But then to a degree, the things that we say matter and are important are kind of arbitrary. Like, why does it matter who can throw a javelin the furthest, but not who has the most piercings on their face? It's all, it's like celebration

of achievement in the abstract. I want to know more about the toast mosaic, but we'll leave it there. We'll leave that to the imagination. Imogen, thank you very much. Thanks very much. Imogen West Nights is a writer and freelance journalist based in London. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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