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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

#591

Post by swores »

speerer wrote: post #551
MrJagil wrote: post #331

Apparently he has been cleared by VAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8

Are all TV newsreaders as aggressive and cynical as this?

Not all. That's Kay Burley, she's probably considered to be above average as a newsreader, but she does have a tendency to put on an air of "this is the most serious situation imaginable" far too often.

I just watched the clip, and the style she's using for the interview would be appropriate if she were interviewing a politician on the subject of war crimes, but for some reason she felt that this story needed that same level of gravitas rather than considering it a light-hearted fluff piece...

edit: Here's an example of her when not in "I need to look like a super serious journalist for this" mode - https://x.com/KayBurley/status/1846114715312754744/mediaView... - I don't watch her very often, but the impression I have is that she spends quite a lot of time in both these "modes", and my feeling is that she consciously decides which fits the topic more, but maybe I'm being unfair and she's just subconsciously acting however feels like a natural fit.

I can't honestly think of any other British news anchors as high profile as her who I'd expect to conduct that conker interview in such an overly serious manner (but again, I'm hardly an expert in current day TV news people, I only see them in clips here and there I'm not a viewer of their full shows).

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

#592

Post by swores »

russellbeattie wrote: post #548
pyrale wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake is trying to find logic in something Douglas Adams wrote. It makes no sense for alien spaceships to carry conkers. That's the joke, a small dig at people believing the local stuff they're used to is universal.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you understand Adams. He was incredibly logical. That was his genius: He would extrapolate on every topic to their logical conclusions - from computers to science to religion. When he was being absurdist, he was very clear about it. Like you said, he was writing about conkers as if it's just the same in the rest of the galaxy, which is definitely absurd. But in order t…

> "Don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think you understand Adams."

In my opinion (as a Brit who isn't an expert on Douglas Adams, but has read his books) the person you replied to was completely right and it's you with the misunderstanding.

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

#593

Post by swores »

zabzonk wrote: post #569
grues-dinner wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> marbles (can you get them anymore?) Almost literally never been cheaper. Under £3 for 50 on AliExpress, free shipping if you buy 150. I don't know if a child gets or loses street cred for having more cheap marbles then you can physically carry in 2024, but they could acquire that many quite easily. > where would kids get cans today? Pretty sure cans still exist! They might be a little more likely to contain, say, o…

> Almost literally never been cheaper. Under £3 for 50 on AliExpress, Oh, good to know. Back when I played the most prized ones were steel ball bearings, which the NCO engineers filched them from the RAF Vulcan bombers. Us flight officers kids didn't get access to this stuff. Somewhat interesting factoid (so I am told - be interested to see a real source), ball bearings were packed into the RAF nuclear weapons to pre…

> "Somewhat interesting factoid (so I am told - be interested to see a real source), ball bearings were packed into the RAF nuclear weapons to prevent horrible accidents if the aircraft crashed"

My imagination couldn't conceive of a logic behind this (nor could GPT-4, which told me you were talking nonsense), so in case anyone else comes across this and has the same curiosity:

Apparently "the ball bearings were introduced to increase the density of the core, preventing it from being compressed into a critical shape by an accident such as a plane crash", with the balls being removed as part of the arming the weapon ready to be dropped.

Wikipedia has a brief mention and a diagram here, though with "citation needed": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design#Warhea...

edit: And also there's "Aircraft engines must not be run with Violet Club loaded on the aircraft with the safety device [of steel balls] in place. The engines must not be started until the weapon is prepared for an actual operational sortie [to prevent the steel balls vibrating like a bag of jellybeans]." which does have a couple of apparent sources cited, though not clickable ones that are easy to look up. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violet_Club#Controversy

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

#594

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

russellbeattie wrote: post #233
Duanemclemore wrote: post #109

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 real…

I was about to post the same thing! I've thought about this literally for decades. I also had to wait for years to learn what conkers are - and I'm still confused. I'd love to know the context/history/culture that DNA was referring to because it doesn't make any sense to me as written So conkers are chestnuts on a string used for childhood smashing competitions. Ooookay. But why would Yooden Vranx have "lots of" ches…

> But why would Yooden Vranx have "lots of" chestnuts on his spaceship? And why "of course"?

If you want a good in-universe explanation, here’s one: in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Zaphod’s grandfather says that he was friends with Yooden Vranx. He would anticipate the kids would drop by.

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

#595

Post by lukas099 »

foldr wrote: post #469
lukas099 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the trope is that British cuisine , that is, dishes that are uniquely British, are bad. Not that there isn’t good food there. Being a rich country, an empire, and part of Europe means you can have many, many different cuisines there though, and like you said many are very good.

Requiring something to be "uniquely British" to count as British cuisine seems like a pretty high bar. Are burgers and apple pie "uniquely American"? Not sure – and who even cares?

You’re right, and that’s not the bad I meant to set. More like cuisine that is associated with Britain. So not a French restaurant that happens to be in London.

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

#596

Post by lukas099 »

dansitu wrote: post #504
lukas099 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the trope is that British cuisine , that is, dishes that are uniquely British, are bad. Not that there isn’t good food there. Being a rich country, an empire, and part of Europe means you can have many, many different cuisines there though, and like you said many are very good.

It's a trope for sure, but it doesn't really make sense: a lot of American dishes are traditional British foods. Roast dinners with stuffing and gravy, apple pie, pancakes, biscuits/scones, fried fish and potatoes, meat pies. Thanksgiving dinner is an ancient British harvest feast with some New World ingredients; Christmas dinner is the same format. And since most American food has also made its way to the UK, there'…

I don’t think American food is particularly revered either though, is it?

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

#597

Post by lukas099 »

foldr wrote: post #474
lukas099 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you realize that kidney pie sounds utterly revolting to those of us who haven’t acquired the taste.

This is like concluding that Japanese food is terrible because the idea of eating raw fish grosses you out. (Also, it's "steak and kidney pie" as a unit, not a steak accompanied by a "kidney pie".)

Of course if you like something you like it. Just so happens that kidneys are not one of the most universally liked ingredients is all I’m saying

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

#598

Post by foldr »

lukas099 wrote: post #597
foldr wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like concluding that Japanese food is terrible because the idea of eating raw fish grosses you out. (Also, it's "steak and kidney pie" as a unit, not a steak accompanied by a "kidney pie".)

Of course if you like something you like it. Just so happens that kidneys are not one of the most universally liked ingredients is all I’m saying

Sure but as I said, there’s nothing particularly British about using kidneys as ingredients. You wouldn’t conclude that French cuisine is unappetizing because some French dishes include them.

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

#599

Post by hacky_engineer »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #492
_fat_santa wrote: post #390

Apparently he was cleared of cheating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8

I wish there were a picture of this steel conker somewhere. I mean, is it "steel colored"? Seems like it would be obvious if it were used.

In the video they mention it was painted and looked like a genuine conker.

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

#600

Post by sedatk »

fauria wrote: post #565
sedatk wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thank you on behalf of every non-Brit in the universe.

You are very welcome sir. I must say I'm not English, I'm Spanish actually. Congratulations on your Street Coder book, sounds like great reading material for junior engineers, I'll give it a read, seems promising. Regards.

Thanks and enjoy!
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