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World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

theguardian.com

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Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#101

Post by swores »

robjan wrote: post #100
Closi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a class thing. Fox hunting, horse riding, polo and skiing... yes. Conkers, No.

Wherever there is a chestnut tree you'll get conkers. I would imagine it's more of a town/village vs city thing rather than class thing.

Which of those are you imagining doesn't have horse chestnut trees? (Conkers come from those, not plain chestnut trees)

I'm sure there are parts of the country where they're less common, but there's huge numbers of conkers falling off trees in big British cities (even if the majority will be in parks) as well as in the countryside. We played with them at my pre-teen city centre school for sure, and the trees are a common sight on roads and in gardens as well as public parks.

edit: the Woodland trust actually says "Though rarely found in woodland, it is a common sight in parks, gardens, streets and on village greens."

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#102

Post by [deleted] »

ccppurcell wrote: post #80
FearNotDaniel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, conkers is sufficiently well-known enough as a children's schoolyard game that I would expect pretty much every newspaper-reading adult to have heard of it. The fact that there is supposedly an "adult" championship event would be a surprise to most. If you're looking for the "story behind the story", other than the fact that it's a seasonally-specific, light human-interest story: there is probably a slight cultu…

It never occurred to me that conkers could be a class thing and you could be right. But let it be known that conkers was extremely popular at my state school; me and all of my friends grew up to be pretty left wing too by the way. Also they banned it at my school, along with pogs, yoyos, etc.

[deleted]

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#103

Post by Timwi »

butterfly42069 wrote: post #24
CJefferson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's it. The reason I think this game is so popular is horse chestnut trees are very popular in the UK. For about a month each year, where I grew up the ground would be littered with conkers, both on my route to school and on school grounds. It's natural when walking around to try to find particularly large / impressive looking ones.

[flagged]

I would assume you got downvoted because you feel for a particularly implausible myth.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#105

Post by School-Cotton »

reaperman wrote: post #90
School-Cotton wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You shouldn’t state it so confidently as fact — nobody has ever produced any evidence that Hans Niemann cheated over the board (let alone with a Bluetooth butt plug, despite all the memes to that effect). I generally don’t like Hans and think given how many times he is confirmed to have cheated online he doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. But still, claiming the butt plug meme as fact is going a bit too far.

Thank you. This is the kind of speed-of-correction (~20 min or less) that is needed for social media discourse to work effectively. Indeed, no evidence has been found, this was just a silly meme from Reddit which predated the Hans drama by several years. When the Hans drama happened, of course Redditors started making silly flippant references to this joke. But some people didn’t understand that those were references…

> Depending on how you balance/weigh personal harm to Hans Niemann vs. How FIDE’s response benefited championship-level players.

It’s certainly a good thing that security is being taken more seriously now. And I have zero sympathy for Hans. He chose to destroy his credibility by cheating online and, regardless of whether he also cheated over the board or not, has only himself to blame for the fact that people don’t trust him now.

Given how easy it is to cheat in chess, reputation and trust are really all you have, and if you decide to squander them, well, that’s on you.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#106

Post by riffraff »

Nursie wrote: post #54
lock_enthusiast wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel there is enough in the article to build an image of the game in your head: I'm imagining a game game where two people trying to destroy the other person's chestnut by whirring and hitting the chestnuts on the end of strings. Now I'm going to go check my mental image against wikipedia.

That's more or less it. You make a hole through your 'conker' (horse chestnut, not the edible type) and thread a string or a bootlace through it. Then you take turns. One holds their string still and lets the conker hang down, the other gets a swing at it with their conker. Whoever's conker lasts the longest is the winner. There were all sorts of rumours about baking them, or soaking in vinegar or what have you to ha…

Ho do you drill the hole? I'm having trouble imagining kids with needles in their pockets, do you do it with a pencil or toothpick?

We've got a ton of horse chestnuts in my neighborhood but I've never heard of this game and I'm eager to introduce it to my kids.

Also, doesn't the conker spiral around your hand hitting it and hurting you?

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#107

Post by riffraff »

ackbar03 wrote: post #61
fy20 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a game you play as a kid. This is the first I've heard of there being a professional league. On the other hand, we also have competitions such as cheese rolling (trying not to get killed by a giant cheese wheel rolling down a hill), so I'm not that surprised. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-6...

I know the version where you try not to kill yourself chasing the cheese. Are you saying there's one where the cheese chases and tries to kill you?

I feel we've entered Terry Pratchett territory in this thread, and I'm very happy about it.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#108

Post by PhasmaFelis »

butterfly42069 wrote: post #24
CJefferson wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's it. The reason I think this game is so popular is horse chestnut trees are very popular in the UK. For about a month each year, where I grew up the ground would be littered with conkers, both on my route to school and on school grounds. It's natural when walking around to try to find particularly large / impressive looking ones.

[flagged]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7637605.stm

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#109

Post by Duanemclemore »

I learned about conkers when I was very young and read the Hitchhikers Guide for the first time...

"We bust our way into a megafreighter I still don't know how, marched on to the bridge waving toy pistols and demanded conkers. A wilder thing I have not known. Lost me a year's pocket money. For what? Conkers.

The captain was this really amazing guy, Yooden Vranx," said Zaphod. "He gave us food, booze - stuff from really weird parts of the Galaxy - lots of conkers, of course, and we had just the most incredible time."

Of course in this well pre-internet age I had to wait literal YEARS to find out what conkers actually WERE. Luckily my aunt was an anglophile and went there six or seven years later. Before she left I asked her to find out what conkers were for me. When she returned she told me what they were and... to be honest I was kinda bummed out it wasn't something more elaborate.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#110

Post by m463 »

Closi wrote: post #97
ccppurcell wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It never occurred to me that conkers could be a class thing and you could be right. But let it be known that conkers was extremely popular at my state school; me and all of my friends grew up to be pretty left wing too by the way. Also they banned it at my school, along with pogs, yoyos, etc.

It's not a class thing. Fox hunting, horse riding, polo and skiing... yes. Conkers, No.

What if you ski in jeans?
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