Apparently he has been cleared by VAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8
Are all TV newsreaders as aggressive and cynical as this?
World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
551–560 of 601 posts
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#552Conkers is a traditional children's game in Great Britain and Ireland played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees—the name 'conker' is also applied to the seed and to the tree itself. The game is played by two players, each with a conker threaded onto a piece of string: they take turns striking each other's conker until one breaks. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers
I thank you on behalf of every non-Brit in the universe.
As a yank watching the video in the OP I felt the piss draining my body. Thought I'd figure out what it was about from the video alone.
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#553Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I get the point that we call them berries even if they aren't That wasn’t the point. The point is that they are berries, by the real definition of berries, which is not the different definition used by a tiny minority of mostly irrelevant people in a specific context. What reason is there to prefer the botanical definition to the common one (that says a berry is a small colorful fruit)? I can see none. On the other…
Do you take the same issue with the original comment pointing out that what are usually called nuts are actually seeds?
> as conkers are seeds (not a nut) - so shouldn't be an issue for someone with a nut allergy
I take issue with this, and in fact we can see how the pedantic scientific meaning caused confusion about the actual underlying facts: people with allergies to what are commonly called "nuts" can in fact be allergic to things that according to the pedantic scientific definition are "seeds". So the OP is actually wrong to say it shouldn't be an issue for someone with a nut allergy!
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#554Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a sport, it's something that kids used to do pre 1950s. People were poor, didn't have manufactured "stuff", so they made their own toys out of simple things like stones, sticks, old wheels etc Football was likely popular because a single ball could keep a while bunch of kids happy for an afternoon (if someone could actually afford a ball). I'm almost 50, and to me the image of boys playing conkers only comes…
I don’t mind the nit on word choice but in my mind a game becomes a sport by the existence of a Championship match and title. Also, I think this follows how most sports come to be. They are started as child play, when we have the time/leisure/energy, then they eventually become something some of us want to continue with as adults and the rest of us will pay to watch because we enjoy the sport so much (often fostered…
A minor correction (though I agree with all the rest of your comment): baseball is also popular in several countries, just a different set of countries than basketball (most of them are in Latin America or East Asia).
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#555Earlier quoted context omitted.
Football/soccer is a British import likely 'invented' somewhere else
A quick look says that Wikipedia disagrees with you. It's homegrown. If you claim otherwise (and claim that Wikipedia is an inadequate source), that's fine, but show your evidence.
What Wikipedia article are you looking at? Even the article on 'Association Football' which I assume is referring to the modern organized form of the sport that did develop in the UK has a long history section referring to the many origins of 'football' or 'soccer'.
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#556Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imagine if someone said "this chair is an object", and you told them they were wrong, because in Object-Oriented Programming, an "object" is an abstract entity in a computer program, not a thing in the physical world. They have never heard of object-oriented programming and yet, they're not wrong. You're the one who is wrong by assuming the terms made up by a niche field override common language used by everyone.
Chairs and OOP have nothing to do with each other. Fruits, seeds, etc are plants and fall into botanical definitions. I get the point that we call them berries even if they aren't, but your comparison to OOP is apples and oranges.
Really?
An apple is a pome but an orange is a hesperidium. Different things entirely.
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#557I 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 real…
For me, the whole notion of there being a professional conkers league, and its longtime judge, real old chap, using a steel replica to cheat, reads like something Douglas Adams could invent.
Wait, he.. he didn't?
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#558Earlier quoted context omitted.
I honestly can't believe you're British and have never heard of conkers. It is a part of our culture, like pubs, pooh sticks, morriss dancing or cheese rolling. It would be a totally valid citizenship question. Maybe you're a city child?
Morriss dancing isnt a real thing. It is just something silly invented by the BBC as a self-deprecating joke, like Canadians street vendors selling fried beaver tails.
I've been to this, it's great:
It's a load of different morriss dancing troops dancing around the town with a parade with the lot of them. And there are a lot. Bloody freezing some years though!
Also, in the same vein, this weekend I think there's the annual Sea Shanty festival in my home town.
https://harwichshantyfestival.co.uk/
The videos are quite bad at conveying how great some of the groups are, especially sitting in a smallish pub with a pint listening to some amazing singers do sea shanties. Quite magical.
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#559Earlier quoted context omitted.
> can you name an American dish that wasn't developed by immigrants? I consider Tex-Mex as American and home grown. It also depends on your definition of "immigrants" since that path looks different everywhere (and across time). Texas was at one time Mexico (and even its own country plus a few others). But tortillas, beans, corn, cornbread are Native American. Many have simply lived here through generations and name…
Which all sounds very similar to Britain, repeatedly settled or invaded over thousands of years by people who left their unique mark on our cuisine and culture, from the Roman conquest to much more recent days.
> repeatedly settled or invaded over thousands of years
The difference with Tex-Mex is that its foundational items are Native American, so the distinction, imo, is that the main ingredients and how they are used is from America. Even though the Americas were populated by pacific islanders/Asians, no one would call Tex-Mex Asian food.
I don't know a lot about the making of Indian food, but I have not yet heard the argument that the base ingredients/spices and how they are used come from the British Isles. That's how I would "draw the line" in determining if it's British or Indian food.
That said, the best Indian food I have had was in London
Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
#560Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which all sounds very similar to Britain, repeatedly settled or invaded over thousands of years by people who left their unique mark on our cuisine and culture, from the Roman conquest to much more recent days.
> repeatedly settled or invaded over thousands of years The difference with Tex-Mex is that its foundational items are Native American, so the distinction, imo, is that the main ingredients and how they are used is from America. Even though the Americas were populated by pacific islanders/Asians, no one would call Tex-Mex Asian food. I don't know a lot about the making of Indian food, but I have not yet heard the arg…
Indian food uses lots of chilies, peppers, tomatoes, and potatoes—which are all native to the Americas, and were brought to Asia by European traders in the early modern period.
So while I see your point, I wouldn't say a cuisine is always "from" the same place as its ingredients.