Feeling knackered, have a few more wrinkles from laughing so much but have just had the most amazing weekend with my crew celebrating our Irish World Record.
HWMBO and myself arrived in Dublin late afternoon and after a very pleasant bus ride to our hotel it seemed very natural to go and find a traditional Irish Pub, as you can imagine they aren’t very difficult to find! We ended up in Gogarty’s Bar which had live music, food and a great atmosphere. At about 9.30pm Becky and Paul arrived and joined us to continue the evening. Becky and I joined in the Irish Dancing, although I was trying to turn it into an Eightsome Reel, lots of singing and I even had lessons on how to do the Irish Kick – absolutely no chance of getting my leg very high (thank goodness I’m a Scot so I don’t have to do that sort of thing!) A great evening had by all.
The following day Katherine and Tim Hay Diddle Diddle arrived to make up the merry gang of crew. After a very relaxed lunch in “the oldest pub in Ireland” – one of many, we had a tour of the Jameson Factory. I felt very sorry for our guide who was probably doing about 30 tours a day, you can imagine how bored he gets of his own jokes!! At the end of the tour we were allowed to do a some whiskey tasting, yummy. Personally I can’t stand the drink on its own but mixed with Ginger Ale its delicious.
We couldn’t possibly go to Dublin without visiting the Guinness Factory, not of course for the Guinness but because they are the reason why the Guinness Book of Records exists in the first place and as I have 3 WR (although I am not the current WR Holder for the 7 Day Treadmill) I thought it would be good to see why the book was created.
How did the Guinness Book of World Records start?
On 10th November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, the Managing Director of Guinness brewery, once went to a shooting party somewhere in Ireland. He happened to get into an argument with a friend about which was the fastest game bird in Europe. Was it the Golden Plover or was it the Grouse? This question went unanswered. The same evening, at the Cambridge House, he realized that it was difficult to conclude which bird was actually the fastest, as there was no reference book which gave any further explanation.
As a matter of fact, the world record for being the most stolen book from public libraries is the Guinness Book of World Records!
