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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

#441

Post by ss64 »

cjs_ac wrote: post #356
oblio wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK has the exact opposite of this. Everything that's for sale here is finely graded according to the buyer's budget and taste. Where someone chooses to do something as innocuous as their grocery shopping in the UK says an awful lot about them. Just sayin', I went shopping in... Denver? Let's just say that there was a mall with a bunch of shops and further down the street another bunch of shops. The public at No…

In Watching the English , Kate Fox gives a thorough explanation of how much she can pin down someone's social class by what they buy at Marks and Spencers (which is a department store that's branched out into groceries). I forget the exact details, but I think it was that doing a full food shop there made you upper-middle class, buying some food items there made you middle-middle class, and buying food items for spec…

'Watching the English' is nearly 40 years old now and a lot of things have changed. M&S is no longer hugely more expensive than other stores, for food I think Waitrose has taken its place. Also this article is veering into the idea that class is all about money, which may work in the US but is far from being true in the UK.

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

#442

Post by freddref »

sourcepluck wrote: post #342

Can confirm that we had very elaborate rules for our conker championships in school in Ireland in the late 90s and early 00s. The lore ran deep too - conkers were varnished in different ways, hardened in front of fireplaces, secret conker trees were coveted, rules were sometimes broken, airplanes were usually not allowed, disputes were not always mitigated, the occasional teacher grumbled. Fun was had.

Two lads set themselves up in the business of selling conkers one year.

Any accidentally dropped conkers were stamped on by any and all in the vicinity.

A conker that survived to the next year was considered "seasoned", although many's the wizened tippex-covered lump of questionable provenance appeared under this explanation.

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

#443

Post by zabzonk »

animal531 wrote: post #172
zabzonk wrote: post #68

When I was a kid (many years ago) me and a friend once went "conkering" down quite a posh road with several horse chestnut trees on it. We had collected a few good ones when a guy came out of his house and called us over. We thought "Oh dear, get off my lawn time", but no! He had big bin full of conkers that he had picked up from his garden, and invited us to choose from them.

He probably played it himself back in the day. Its interesting how games and other things like songs, stories etc. persist and/or disappear over time.

Things from my youth, as well as conkers:

- marbles (can you get them anymore?)

- kick the can (where would kids get cans today?)

- British bulldog/chain tig (far too dangerous)

I can't remember the rules of these, but they were very popular in the early 1960s, when I played them.

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

#444

Post by spencerflem »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #366

Right, so picture this: you’re in the middle of a cracking game of Conker, and things aren’t exactly going your way. Your conker's looking as sturdy as a biscuit dunked in a cuppa for too long, and your mate’s conker is built like the Queen's Guard—completely unshakeable. But instead of taking the thrashing like a proper Brit, you think to yourself, “Why not get a bit creative, eh?” Now, I’m not talking about anythin…

I miss when long rambly silly comments like this were off topic and weird but at least kind charming

AI ones don't have the same juice :c

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

#445

Post by foldr »

bitshiftfaced wrote: post #433
foldr wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not obscure in the UK. You can find any number of equally 'obscure' cultural practices referenced in American newspapers without explanation. It's unreasonable to expect a British newspaper to be free of British cultural background assumptions just because it's viewable by an international audience.

It appears that about 38% of visits to their site come from the UK, so it might be that the majority of their readers aren't familiar with conker. https://www.similarweb.com/website/theguardian.com/#geograph... I guess your point makes sense, though. There isn't the obligation to explain anything. I just personally think it's good writing to anticipate what your readers may not likely understand.

The NYT has 150 million monthly readers globally of which 27% are international. I still wouldn't expect it to insert helpful explainers every time it mentions a cultural phenomenon specific to the US.

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

#447

Post by sourcepluck »

dilap wrote: post #404
Havoc wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait how do airplanes fit into all this?

I was curious too: > An "airplane" in conkers is when a player swings their conker in a wide, sweeping, horizontal motion, typically at about shoulder height.

Correct, yes.

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

#448

Post by adestefan »

oblio wrote: post #335
cjs_ac wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this quote from Andy Warhol that I think has great explanatory power: > What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest. You can be watching TV and see Coca-Cola, and you know that the President drinks Coca-Cola, Liz Taylor drinks Coca-Cola, and just think, you can drink Coca-Cola, too. A Coke is a Coke and no amo…

> The UK has the exact opposite of this. Everything that's for sale here is finely graded according to the buyer's budget and taste. Where someone chooses to do something as innocuous as their grocery shopping in the UK says an awful lot about them. Just sayin', I went shopping in... Denver? Let's just say that there was a mall with a bunch of shops and further down the street another bunch of shops. The public at No…

Warhol wrote that in 1975 when the US was a lot different.

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

#449

Post by louthy »

eru wrote: post #388
louthy wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mainstay? For sure it is. Every boy (and probably some girls, but never seen myself) plays conkers and likely puts their life in great peril climbing horse chestnut trees to gather the best conkers before anyone else gets them. When I think back now to some of the massive (old) trees I used to climb and the action of shaking the branches to try to get the chestnuts to drop (whilst the branch is breaking underneath…

Not to disparage your heroics, but I am fairly sure you weren't 100ft up, and the tale grew taller in the telling. Conkers is good fun. Though a bit dangerous for modern sensibilities perhaps.

Maybe, but I took a guess based on how high horse chestnut trees can get. I’m almost sure I am underestimating. The best ones I used to climb were those that lined the entry to a country estate and they were clearly very old and were absolutely huge.

A horse chestnut tree can reach heights of approximately 30 to 40 meters (about 98 to 131 feet) [1].

I used to go pretty damn far up, one time really shitting myself up as the thinner weaker branches started breaking away as I was climbing higher.

It genuinely felt like, even if probably not entirely true, that I was sticking my head out of the top of the tree before it started giving way. It’s a memory that will stick with me forever!

Of course I can’t prove this, but it’s not entirely implausible that a very old horse chestnut tree could be over 100 feet high and it’s not entirely implausible that it’s possible to climb up a tree of that size. So I guess either take my word for it or not, your call ;)

[1] https://directree.org/horse-chestnut-aesculus-hippocastanum/

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

#450

Post by sourcepluck »

walthamstow wrote: post #407
sourcepluck wrote: post #342

Can confirm that we had very elaborate rules for our conker championships in school in Ireland in the late 90s and early 00s. The lore ran deep too - conkers were varnished in different ways, hardened in front of fireplaces, secret conker trees were coveted, rules were sometimes broken, airplanes were usually not allowed, disputes were not always mitigated, the occasional teacher grumbled. Fun was had.

Did you have 'stamps' in Ireland too? When a player's conker comes off the string but remains whole, the opponent can call "stamps!!" and attempt to stamp it to pieces.

We had an explicit "no stamping" rule, which could be overturned by agreement before a game.

Actually, we used to have a rhythmic string of rules which were very sayable, which I can't remember, along the lines of "no stamping no biting no _____ no _____ no ...", with a list of things, and a rhyme or two in there. I'm going to ask any old friends I run into and see if I can get the full thing back again.

I'm pretty sure the first two were no stamping and no biting though. If you'd anything like that, I'd love to hear it!

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