It’s True -- Look It Up

The saddest documented passing of the longer-lived brother of the record-breaking, record-keeping McWhirter twins occurred the other day in Britain. Norris McWhirter, co-founder with his brother, Ross, of the Guinness Book of Records, died at 78 after his last game of tennis. The McWhirter boys (Norris was 20 minutes older than his brother, who was assassinated by the Irish Republican Army in 1975) were sports reporters and fact-checkers who founded the bestselling copyrighted book of all time, according to itself. That was 50 years ago after the dumbest journalistic assignment ever: Determine which bird flies faster, the red grouse or golden plover. The grouse won, and brewery giant Guinness soon commissioned the McWhirters to compile an annual collection of serious and frivolous superlatives to settle all bar disputes anywhere. Longest-bearded living woman? 11 inches. Most amputations on the same arm? Clint Hallam, three. Largest cookie? An 81.75-foot-diameter chocolate chip monster. Largest refrigerator magnet collection? Louise Goldfarb, 29,000. Smallest returning boomerang? 1.8 inches. Most lightning strikes on one head? Roy Sullivan, seven. The McWhirters reveled in reference records. So, apparently, did more than 100 million readers in 37 languages. Tallest hairdo? Marie Antoinette, 36 inches laced with supporting lard. Norris, a Scot who favored thick spectacles over contacts (first lens invented 1887), never met a factoid he didn’t like (the current 300-page edition reports the world’s longest hot dog was 15 feet, 3 inches). He traveled to 91 countries to verify records and to research others that were enacted on fraternity dares in an international showoff phenomenon called “Guinnessport” by Sports Illustrated. Largest game of leapfrog? 222. Longest time balanced on one foot? 76 hours, 40 minutes. Longest tap dance? 28.24 miles. Norris turned his keen memory into other books and a long-running TV show, spontaneously answering rapid-fire audience trivia questions in the memory-easing knowledge that no one had time to double-check him. The McWhirters were inseparable in life, Norris calling his brother’s murder more of an amputation. When Norris ran for Parliament, his identical twin also campaigned, allowing McWhirter to appear at two events at once. Both were lifelong Conservatives and ardent supporters of individual rights, especially if those individuals were combating government or unions. The pair once climbed atop their Mercedes with a megaphone to accuse nuclear protesters of being Soviet dupes, earning in the ensuing melee the distinction of being the only record-keeping twin editors attacked by a mob of pacifists. Even after his death April 19, Norris McWhirter helped set a new record: longest Times editorial paragraph about British twins.