60 ms·
World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating
- School-Cotton 2y agoIs this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? Or are you expected to have to google it? Apparently it’s a game where you take turns swinging a chestnut on a string and trying to hit the opponent’s chestnut and break it. Yes, I can see how a steel fake chestnut would be an advantage here, though I’m amazed it wouldn’t be instantly obvious to even a casual observer that the look and sound were wrong. So maybe I’m still missing something.
- lock_enthusiast 2y agoI 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.
- Nursie 2y agoThat'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 harden them up, but effectively it's the sort of game that a bunch of kids can play under a horse chestnut tree with relatively few props. Using a steel 'ringer' in that circumstance would be the worst sort of unsportsmanlike behaviour.
- riffraff 2y agoHo 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?
- LandR 2y ago> your hand hitting it and hurting you? WHen you were a kid, accidentally hitting yourself or the other person was just part of it!
- looperhacks 2y agoI'm not from Britain, but we used to craft with chestnuts. We always used a small hand drill (Wikipedia tells me it's called a gimlet). I assume it's the same in Britain
- tankenmate 2y agoHorse chestnut shells are very hard, normally you would drill the hole.
- Nursie 2y agoA gimlet? Hammer and a thick-ish nail? Honestly I can't remember how we used to do it. Might even have used a hand drill at some point. They're fairly soft when you've made a hole in the shell, so you might get away with a screwdriver? When at school we probably made do with a compass (the drawing kind), as we all had them. I'm sure that resulted in a pretty high rate of conkers being destroyed before they could be strung, and a lot of ruined compasses. > Also, doesn't the conker spiral around your hand hitting it and hurting you? Generally not, though the game isn't without its minor hazards :) There's a (very sweet) video here that seems to do a good job of showing the process and the game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg Through the exact rules are up to the players and I personally consider the "stamps" rule they mention to be foul play :)
- riffraff 2y ago
- hackernewds 2y agoI'm having the utter best time as a 12 year old replacing conker with something less wholesome
- pixxel 2y agoIf my memory serves me: you used to announce your conker as a “two-er”, or “three-er”, for example, to inform your opponent how many conkers your particular conker had previously claimed. If your opponent decided to challenge you and won then they would claim your “three-er” and add its win total to their own. So a “two-er” would become a “five-er”.
- Nursie 2y agoThis is really probing the dusty, cobwebbed corners of my memory but yes, I have a very vague recollection of a 'six-er' being somewhat special...
- flir 2y agoThe phrase "a sixer at conkers" is floating to the surface. Was it that once you reached six, you stopped counting? Or do you retire it, undefeated?
- Ntrails 2y agoI also recall this, but suspect sometimes numbers may have been inflated...
- lisper 2y agoHere's a video that explains it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg And one from the championship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5t6ej8Jzew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5t6ej8Jzew And here I was thinking that curling was the most ridiculous-looking sport in the world. I stand corrected.
- RandomThoughts3 2y agoI don’t think conker players pretend it’s a sport. It would ihmo be more accurate to call it a game.
- lisper 2y agos/sport/organized competitive activity/
- conductr 2y agoI’m American and never heard of this sport in my life yet article painted a similar picture in my mind.
- raffraffraff 2y agoIt'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 from books or TV based in early 1900s UK. I've never actually seen anyone play it. And nowadays people don't really grow up at all. They continue playing right into adulthood and old age, with luxury toys.
- hnlmorg 2y agoMy kids play conkers. They also have games consoles and other luxury toys. Kids just love to play.
- jamiek88 2y agoI’m 47 and played conkers in school on merseyside. The local ‘conker trees’ were famous!
- OJFord 2y agoI think whether or not you grew up with a significant local population of 'conker trees' probably had a lot more to do with it than age. I'm younger than you (and didn't grow up 'poor') and we played too, 'pre-50s' is ridiculous.
- komadori 2y agoI grew up in the 90s and we played conkers. The main detail I remember was that soaking them in vinegar was supposed to make them stronger!
- 2y ago
- cultofmetatron 2y agosoo.. bayblade with nuts?
- mikeodds 2y agoInnate knowledge to Brits, similar to knowing a swan might break your arm
- DougN7 2y agoLol, I don’t understand what THAT means! A swan might break your arm?!?
- throwup238 2y agoIt’s the British version of an urban myth. It’s like an urban myth… but more British.
- seanhunter 2y agoI emigrated to Britain. These sorts of things mystified me for the longest time. Yes. Picture some British parents and their child on a walk near a pond, river, canal or whatever. The child sees a swan. The parents will say something like "don't get too close dear, it could break your arm". Swans are aggressive so it's probably not terrible advice, but not because they go around breaking people's arms specifically.
- MonkeyClub 2y agoAnecdotal reports, all of them true I'm sure: https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-24008,00.html https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-24... Lovely read!
- beezlewax 2y agoYe and the queen eats swans for breakfast or something like that.
- Nursie 2y agoAll swans are owned by the crown and the monarch has the exclusive right to kill and eat them. Or at least that's the way I heard it, come to think of it I have no idea at all if that's true. Stops people killing and eating swans though. Not that many would anyway these days.
- Finbarr 2y agoYes, it is. It’s a game most news-reading-age adults will have played when they were at school as children.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- saretup 2y agoIf it is a serious game, I’m surprised they don’t examine the chestnuts first
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 0110101001 2y agoThe alleged cheater was also the head judge of the tournament.
- triceratops 2y agoFurther evidence that it isn't a serious tournament. In what other sport does the referee also play?
- fy20 2y agoIt'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-69065807 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-gloucestershire-6...
- ackbar03 2y agoI 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?
- isodev 2y ago> Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland I’m from elsewhere in Europe and I know about it from high school and it’s also something that pops up in the world sports section on news websites every now and then.
- tomxor 2y agoYes. Although the last time I played or heard anyone discuss conkers as a game was in the 1990s at school. My dad seemed to find the concept of fake conkers amusing enough to take it upon himself to craft me a resin filled one, although it didn't fool any kids. In more recent years a bus driver complained to me conkers are not legal tender as I placed some down while in search of change. Around this time of year you will find most people have their pockets filled with conkers. </dev/random>
- tankenmate 2y agoAs well as the old myth that putting a conker in the corner of a room will ward off spiders building a web there. The veracity of which, attest to I cannot.
- fer 2y ago> Although the last time I played or heard anyone discuss conkers as a game was in the 1990s at school. Same, but with peonzas/trompos[0]. It's interesting since it's also about breaking the other player's item thanks to the inertia provided by a string. In short, they're hardcore spinning tops: large, generally with a metal tip, spun much faster due to the string winding, and as mentioned, the objective is to crack the other player's. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trompo
- beAbU 2y agoI did not know it was possible to break those things to be honest. We made a circle with a string or something, and then let the two spinning tops (as we called them) duke it out, and the loser is the one knocked out of the ring. Ours were made from a very tough plastic, either nylon or HDPE.
- bee_rider 2y ago> The 23-year-old said: “My conker disintegrated in one hit, and that just doesn’t happen … I’m suspicious of foul play and have expressed my surprise to organisers.” It seems the suspicious was pretty quick.
- School-Cotton 2y agoIt’s just crazy that someone would cheat at something so low-stakes with such a high probability of being caught, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.
- aniforprez 2y agoPeople cheat on online cooperative computer games like Helldivers with almost no rewards for being performatively better other than a few imaginary in-game points. People can be weird about the smallest things
- bee_rider 2y agoCheating at a PvE game like Helldivers is basically a victimless crime (I don’t do it, but I can see why people would).
- a_t48 2y agoCheating with only your friends - yeah, mostly. Cheating with randos sounds like it would lead to boring gameplay.
- wcfields 2y agoLike, you can cheat at Solitaire, but why?
- shermantanktop 2y agoHey, dopamine is dopamine. This ain’t stolen valor or a plagiarized thesis.
- krispyfi 2y agoI only know of the game because the Conkerer web browser was named after it. http://conkeror.org/ http://conkeror.org/
- 1659447091 2y ago> it’s a game where you take turns swinging a chestnut on a string and trying to hit the opponent’s chestnut and break it. Sounds like a British version of pencil break - but with way more scandal, apparently
- aardvark179 2y agoI think most people would know just from the headline.
- FearNotDaniel 2y agoYes, 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 cultural bias amongst those who most fondly remember the game towards the private-school-educated, upper-class types who combine nostalgia for imagined "glory days" with political conservatism, so this is a good opportunity for the left-leaning Guardian to hand-pick someone who appears to belong to that class and expose them as a ridiculously-dressed scoundrel with childish interests and suspect morals. The subtext is: these are the sort of idiots we want you to associate with Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson and co, and thus the Overton Window gets a tiny nudge in the opposite direction.
- willvarfar 2y agoThis is silly. Conkers aren't a rich person's sport, and this article in the guardian isn't pushing any political subversive subtext.
- bboygravity 2y agoNews is what you don't get to read. The rest are political ads.
- blitzar 2y agoI heard the conkers cheater was an illegal immigrant, the establishment covered it up and now they wont even report on conkers anywhere in the main stream media (/s?)
- ccppurcell 2y agoIt 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.
- el_oni 2y agoIt's sufficiently well known that as a British 30 something I understood what was being alleged just from the headline
- jareklupinski 2y agoin my schools, the closest analog was probably using the school-supplied sporks to engage in "Spork Wars" (not the best example but it will do https://youtu.be/vO7SclBfpZ8?t=145 https://youtu.be/vO7SclBfpZ8?t=145 ) though through the "draft" nature of which spork you would receive, we never had a controversy on the level of the article's: > "There are also suggestions that King Conker had marked the strings of harder nuts"
- fmbb 2y agoSwede here. I know from just reading the headline what happened. Byt then I’ve watched some British costume dramas.
- 256_ 2y agoI'm British. I only have a very vague memory of the game from my childhood. I didn't remember what the goal was, but I remembered you have to hit the opponent's one. I don't remember if I ever played it or not.
- ddmf 2y agoYou hold the conker in one hand and the string in the other with some tension and then release so it pings and bashes the other players conker, hoping to smash it off the string. Repeat until one conker is smashed into oblivion. If your conker wins against multiples it becomes named mythically: a twoer, a threer, and so on. I once had a niner. a fiver took it down.
- thih9 2y agoCan you cheat by purposefully missing the opponent’s conker? Thus reducing the total impact on conkers in this match vs conkers in other matches and getting an advantage?
- bluehatbrit 2y agoI can't imagine so. A match is over when one persons conker is destroyed. If you were purposefully missing, you'd be throwing the game. Theirs would still take a battering from hitting yours as well.
- krisoft 2y agoBut then how would you smash theirs? That sounds a bit like cheating by staying at home and not playing.
- lmm 2y agoYou take it in turns to hit, moving yours on their turn is cheating. Given that you have a lot more control over what kind of hit happens on your turn than on theirs, skipping your turn is never going to give you an advantage (unless your opponent is somehow anti-competent).
- physicsguy 2y agoYeah it’s a game you play as kids.
- harperlee 2y agoIt is in Spain, any self-respected pre-smartphone-childhood person has at the very minimum least seen this in action at the playground.
- echoangle 2y agoIs the game skill-based? How can you influence which chestnut breaks? Is the challenge chestnut selection? Or a specific swing method?
- beAbU 2y agoI find it highly suspicious that the reigning champion gets to drill the holes in the conkers. You can intentionally make some of them weaker by drilling closer to the edge or something. I assume the conkers are provided by the organizers, and the participants must select their conker from the collection or given one at random. Prevents tampering I guess.
- echoangle 2y agoI thought it might be like formula 1 where having the right equipment is part of the challenge.
- dagw 2y agoI assume the conkers are provided by the organizers Going around the conker trees in your area and finding the perfect conker is a huge part of the game. There is also a certain amount of pre-game 'modification' that are generally allowed, like soaking them in various solutions, or baking them in an oven. Having to use a provided conker would be like showing up to the Tour de France and being assigned a bike by the organisers.
- joncrocks 2y agoIndeed, but apparently this is the way it works. I suspect to prevent 'foul-play' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Conker_Championships#WCC_Rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Conker_Championships#WCC...
- dagw 2y agoI stand corrected. Perhaps Tour de France should apply this rule as well to avoid foul play?
- b800h 2y agoYes, it's a quintessential childhood game here. You take turns to have a single swing at the opponent's conker, until one of the conkers is smashed off its string. Cheating is a bit of an art. Baking the chestnuts at the right temperature was one method; a friend of mine filled his conker with glue.
- ZiiS 2y agoMore UK people will have played conkers then soccer.
- MonkeyClub 2y agoMore Brits will have played football than soccer too, I believe.
- nickcw 2y agoI used to play conkers at school in England, however my children didn't. The reason? Schools have banned the game of conkers due to health and safety reasons. I asked my 17 year old this morning and he had never even heard of the game of conkers. So I think the age of conkers is passing, alas.
- martin_ 2y agoAlso played at school in England.... probably ~22 years ago now I'd guess! Sad to hear that era is over!
- schoen 2y agoWhat are the health and safety risks from this game? Do the chestnuts fragment violently when they break up?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- 946789987649 2y agoaccidentally hitting each other
- schoen 2y agoI can't really visualize the amount of momentum involved, or how sharp the chestnut is. Is that specifically about eye injuries, or could it hurt someone some other way?
- lazide 2y agoIf you whip it above your head at a good 100-200 rpm, anything is possible.
- schoen 2y agoAfter writing the above comment, I watched videos of people playing conkers and now I understand how it could, in theory, cause an eye injury. It was hard for me to visualize how close the defender's conker is to the defender's body before seeing the video. I was somehow wrongly imagining that it was being supported on a much longer string or with the help of other objects somehow.
- ddmf 2y agogosh i remember those halcyon days back when I had a niner, sadly it was taken by a fiver.
- xg15 2y agoWas confused too. My first thought was about conker crafting [1] and I was puzzled that there was a world championship for it and people were serious enough about it to cheat - but then again, weirder things exist... [1] https://curiousandgeeks.com/conker-animals-autumn-crafts https://curiousandgeeks.com/conker-animals-autumn-crafts
- yoz-y 2y agoThey did play conkers with cranes and caravans in Top Gear, so I feel that at least a large portion of non Brits will know the game from there.
- vidarh 2y agoI'm Norwegian, but have lived in the UK half my life, since I was 25, and I'm aware of it, though have never seen it played. I think most people who have lived her for a while will at least have heard references to it.
- samuelec 2y agoI'm puzzled as well, what the heck the article is talking about and why it's posted here?
- OJFord 2y agoYeah, like saying 'tetherball' or 'keep-away' to someone in the US; which I only know from a Monk episode I watched last night. I didn't know and wouldn't have guessed there were world championships, though.
- OJFord 2y agoMissed the edit, but just to add 'keep-away' is 'piggy-in-the-middle' in the UK, and I don't know if perhaps you have it too but 'swingball' is a similar game to 'tetherball' but played with a tennis ball & (typically not tennis, but just cheap plastic thing for the purpose) racket.
- Aardwolf 2y agoI only know about conkers due to photonicinduction's youtube video where they play conkers with two CRT televisions attached with ropes to the ceiling However even without knowing that I think reading the article makes it clear enough what it's about and that a steel chestnut shattering the other one seems like an unfair advantage :)
- red_admiral 2y agoIt is a very, very British thing. A generation or two ago, almost everyone played it at school and it was Very Serious Business. I guess you needed something to occupy yourself before Pokemon Go was invented.
- nanna 2y agoI have fond memories of playing conkers in primary school. Sometimes you got a rapped knuckle but children's sports is full of cuts and grazes, and it didn't hurt as much as slaps anyway. The main issue was that some kids would inevitably harden their conkers by putting them in the oven or lacquering them, and so on. But spotting that was part of the charm.
- flir 2y agoBeing of a geeky bent, I tried them all. It never worked. They go brittle and shatter, or they go soft and fall apart. (When I was a kid, conkers were so prized we chucked sticks at them to try to get them to drop. So it was a bit of a shock to me when they started just being left where they fell. Kids today, off my lawn, uphill both ways, etc etc).
- nanna 2y agoCheaters never prosper!
- wslh 2y agoIn many places the cup-and-ball [1] game was/is popular. It's incredible to think now about games that doesn't require batteries and USB ports. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup-and-ball https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup-and-ball
- BlueTemplar 2y ago"A generation or two ago" roughly corresponds to the Tamagotchi era too.
- 2y ago
- MasterScrat 2y agoHere's how it looks like apparently: https://youtu.be/hXUbTKd6pmo?t=29 https://youtu.be/hXUbTKd6pmo?t=29
- ndndjdjdn 2y agoYes. Usually conkers were banned at school. So we had to play space invaders, for which you need a tennis ball not an Atari.
- mhandley 2y agoYes, it was a big deal when I was in school in the 70s. Everyone played. There were never any conkers left unclaimed under any Horse Chestnut within a mile of the school. We all tried lots of tricks - soaking in vinegar, baking in the oven - practically anything was allowed, but I'm not sure any of it made a difference. It could be pretty painful as getting your hand hit by a high speed conker was common occurrence, but I don't recall anyone getting any lasting injuries.
- ben_w 2y agoIndeed, it was still popular in the 80s and 90s. I assume still is, given the Guardian is a national newspaper.
- Wildgoose 2y agoSo well known that it was even famously used in an advert for a kid's chocolate bar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC9BBLSZZdQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC9BBLSZZdQ
- traceroute66 2y ago> Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? Absolutely. Very well known. My Youtube-fu is not with me, so I can't seem to locate this video on Youtube, but see this BBC Archive footage from 1971 that was posted on Instagram[1] from a BBC News Report entitled "Conkers is no longer a kids' game." [1] https://www.instagram.com/bbc_archive/reel/DA7zkmkAShz/ https://www.instagram.com/bbc_archive/reel/DA7zkmkAShz/
- fedeb95 2y agoit's pretty easy to infer by the article. Or ask GPT-n to do it.
- oneeyedpigeon 2y agoIn Britain, it's very well known by those of us who are 40+, and I think even younger people will at least have heard of it, even if they haven't played it themselves. It was an absolute staple of playgrounds in the 1980s. There's a rich history of supposed 'cheats' — boiling the conker in vinegar was a classic. And, note, conker, not chestnut (two different things).
- yabatopia 2y agoHere are some pictures of a previous championship: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/oct/12/50th-world-conker-championships-ashton-conker-club-southwick-in-pictures https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2015/oct/12/5... .
- entropyie 2y agoYes it is, everyone I grew up with in Ireland played conkers.
- eru 2y ago> Is this game well-known enough in Britain and Ireland that readers will know what on earth is being alleged just from reading this article? I got the gist just from reading the headline, yes. And I'm not even a limey, I just lived there for a few years.
- exhilaration 2y agoWhat is conker, you ask? Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LcaUTAuQfc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LcaUTAuQfc
- x0x0 2y agoI was very confused by that link calling it a horse chestnut. That is not what I grew up calling a horse chestnut, ie the keratin thing that your farrier trims (or you do with a rasp.) Separately, what an absolutely nutty thing to cheat at. Thanks for sharing the video!
- IncreasePosts 2y agoThe alleged cheater is in this video @3:29
- conkingstar 2y agoMan, this is conkers!
- worstspotgain 2y agoHe was said to have nuts of steel, but the claim wasn't taken seriously, or literally.
- butterfly42069 2y agoThey said he had balls of steel to try that one For the yanks and elsewhere, yes conkers is well known in Britain. You basically put a chestnut (but its a conker) on a string by making a hole in the middle. Take turns swinging them on the string, whoever's breaks is the loser. It used to be great fun till it was banned/requires eye protection now. There's an opportunity there, someone could make a perfectly safe conker app. I'm sure that would adequately replace it. /s
- bee_rider 2y agoSo the game is to test who has the stronger conker by hitting them into each-other?
- CJefferson 2y agoYes, 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.
- butterfly42069 2y ago[flagged]
- seanhunter 2y agoI have no idea why you think safety laws prevent people from playing conkers in spite of the very thread you are commenting on being evidence that people play conkers and it is perfectly legal.
- timthorn 2y agoIt is legal, but it also did get banned at my primary school. It continued to be played.
- nealmueller 2y agoThe World Conker Championships is an annual event held in England, where competitors from around the world play the traditional game of conkers using chestnuts. Each player threads a chestnut, known as a conker, onto a string and takes turns striking their opponent’s conker, aiming to break it. The tournament follows a knockout format, with players advancing until a world champion is declared. The event has been running since 1965 and has grown in popularity, drawing international participants and spectators.
- k7sune 2y agoConsidering that it's called a world championship, someone should study the sport in-depth! Are the players allowed to swing the chestnut in a circle like a sling? Can they use carbon fiber strings, or maybe some sort of elastic string to build up more energy? Or can the player use a heavy string so it can crack like a whip? Fancy arm/wrist/fingers movements to accelerate the chestnut in the last moment? What's the optimum strike angle to crack a chestnut along its natural cleavages? This could be so exciting!
- 1propionyl 2y agoThis all kind of takes the fun out of it don't you think? Not every game needs to have the fun sucked out of it by endless optimization and instrumental play. Just conk some chestnuts. Simple as.
- bee_rider 2y agoWell, the winner this year was an American so I bet we’ll be back next year with high tech nano-engineered strings and carefully bred chestnuts.
- Timwi 2y agoWhat you find fun or unfun need not match other people's preferences. You can tell us what's fun or unfun for you, but you can't tell other people they're having fun wrong. I personally find a lot of optimization problems very fun and can keep at them for a long time.
- bee_rider 2y agoIt seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings. Also I don’t understand the one paragraph aside about the American who is never mentioned before or after(?)
- silisili 2y agoThe guy the article is about won the men's. At the end, the men's champ plays the women's champ for overall champion. This American mentioned was the women's champ, who apparently went on to beat him. Which either means he wasn't cheating, or was and then played fairly on the last match?
- penjelly 2y agoI assume he wouldn't cheat everytime and instead would only do it to reduce the overall wear on the chestnut over many matches?
- School-Cotton 2y agoApparently they pick a new one each round.
- boomboomsubban 2y ago>It seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings. It is probably the kind of event where the only people who would be willing to do the timely prep work are the contestants.
- mbo 2y ago>It seems like a bad move to have a participant responsible for drilling the holes and attaching the strings. Part of the "point" of conkers is that conker-prep is just as much as a skill as the technique during the hitting phase. I think this was just poor scrutineering (or corruption) on the organizers side.
- 2y ago
- mdsahjahan 2y ago[flagged]
- techterrier 2y agoSome people pay for conkers But I get mine for free I go round my grandmas house She's got a horse chestnut tree
- benoliver999 2y ago... conkers
- physicsguy 2y agoBass drop I love the glimpses that give away the British people on here. Sometimes I feel like I’m the only one but this thread has brought them all out
- niffydroid 2y agoThis wins the day for me
- thatguymike 2y agoI'm surprised they pick their conkers out of a bag. The whole fun when I was a kid was competing for who could find the toughest conker. Common cheating methods included putting it through the tumble dryer to dry it out (Mum didn't love that) or soaking in vinegar. If you're pulling conkers out of a bag I think each match is basically a coin flip, unless there's much more technique I'm missing?
- andrewflnr 2y agoVinegar makes it stronger? I would naively expect the opposite.
- kimixa 2y agoI wouldn't be surprised if many of the "techniques" softened it but made it more resistant to shattering. An extremely hard but brittle conker would probably make for poor results.
- andrewflnr 2y agoInteresting. I can certainly see how brittleness is probably fatal. But a soft one won't be any help at breaking your opponent's conker, either, right? Unless speed of your conker can overcome the increased inefficiency of transmitting energy into the opponent's...
- ThrowawayTestr 2y agoEverything can be a sport if you try hard enough.
- blitzar 2y agoEverything can be a sport if you can bet on it.
- zabzonk 2y agoAs someone that played it over 60 years ago, there is quite a bit of technique involved - for example, aiming to hit the opponent's conker accurately and hard.
- tomcam 2y agoThe conkeror this year is from Indianapolis! She only learned about conkers a few months ago.
- philipwhiuk 2y agoThe field of entrants is probably like 50.
- tomcam 2y agoSad to experience this kind of Indianapolisphobia in the hallowed pages of HN
- philipwhiuk 2y agoJudging by the photos it's definitely in the 2 digits, although given the existence of a number 70 let's assume it's ~99: https://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/gallery/all/Geoff%20Sutcliffe19273.jpg https://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/gallery/all/Geoff%2... I guess it could be that each country can only send at most one representative (making her the US Conker Champion) but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a little unlikely.
- animatethrow 2y agoI needed this cute video to tell me what the heck conker is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg You and your opponent each attach a chestnut to a shoestring. You try to destroy your opponent's stringed chestnut by swinging your own stringed chestnut at it. The video explains different ways to cheat, such as coating the chestnut with nail varnish.
- hettygreen 2y agoThis article on hackernews reads the same as "Advancing Theorem Proving in LLMs through Large-Scale Synthetic Data" would on conkernews.
- qwertox 2y agoI'm also pretty disturbed by it being here. Even worse on place #1.
- Sebguer 2y agoI'd recommend finding more important things to be disturbed by.
- HocusLocus 2y agoHijacking page on place#1 to post this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rP3AAjsiqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rP3AAjsiqY "Show HN: Two purple Conkers.. and one yellow honker. In Python using PyBangSwackThump With Fleshy Bits"
- winwang 2y ago#1 does feel a bit much but I don't mind getting a kick out of titles/situations which could be interpreted immaturely.
- vultour 2y agoI'd rather read and learn about conkers than another snake oil AI / crypto blogspam.
- Cthulhu_ 2y agoIt's almost like people upvoted it or it's quiet. Commenting on it won't help; downvote it if you want, upvote things you do want to see. I for one am here for the random things that pop up on occasion. I have zero interest in LLMs and crypto-bollocks (mainly because I'm not earning money off of it)
- dang 2y agohttps://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20interesting%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
- zabzonk 2y agoWhen 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.
- rsktaker 2y agoWhat a wonderful story, thank you for sharing.
- animal531 2y agoHe 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.
- zabzonk 2y agoThings 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.
- aeneasmackenzie 2y agoElaborate marble runs are very popular, although many people use steel balls instead.
- Loughla 2y agoMarble runs are wildly different from marbles we played when I was a kid. One is an engineering (lite) exercise, the other is a game of vague dexterity to take someone else's marble collection.
- 2y ago
- gacklecackle 2y ago[dead]
- kapitalx 2y agoThis brought back so many fun childhood memories of fall time in Leeds, going for walks with friends in search of the best conker. I hadn't thought about it in years.
- bigbacaloa 2y ago[dead]
- kapitalx 2y ago> Jakins was responsible for drilling and inserting strings into other competitors’ chestnuts as the competition’s top judge, known as the “King Conker”. So the "judge" who prepped the conkers for everyone and stringed them also competed in the competition and won
- philipwhiuk 2y agoThese things in the UK are generally simultaneously massively serious in terms of arbitrary rules and also massively not. I suspect there are handful of entrants each year, a few obsessives and 'people around at the time it happens to be on. Hence this guy who has been around long enough he gets asked to help out. UK law generally is based on previous screw-ups. Doubtless next year they will add a rule, but in general abusing such power would fall under the general "good sportsmanship" rule and be dealt with far more seriously than just 'banned from a tiny competition with a grand sounding name'.
- andrewinardeer 2y agoThis is bonkers!
- Duanemclemore 2y agoI 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.
- WesolyKubeczek 2y agoFor 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.
- cryptonector 2y agoWait, he.. he didn't?
- WesolyKubeczek 2y agoHe didn't, but the mere fact that conkers are serious enough business that championships among adults even exist, that there are people for whom the game means so much that they engage in it for life, that one of the more prominent of the bunch even makes a conker of steel, and then an accusation of using it to cheat is raised — there should be a movie or a story about this. This is a quality urban legend material. Today it may be a nothingburger, but as years go by, it inevitably gets smoothed and a bit embellished here and there — just a little bit, you understand — and then the next Douglas Adams puts it in a setting where it is super hilarious and unmistakably British.
- 2y ago
- hi_hi 2y agoSurely every kids (in the UK) knows the secret to a winning conker is to keep it in a dark place for several weeks so it naturally hardens up. I'm not sure if this is considered cheating though.
- culebron21 2y agoThanks to HN, now I know there's such a sport with hitting nuts attached to strings. I've read a lot of English-speaking material, but was only aware of rugby (it was aired on our TV in the 00's) and cricket. I'm amazed there's even a world championship, and that the Guardian has thumbnails to attract readers to important news on this sport.
- hindsightbias 2y agoWe didn't have conkers so we played mumblety-peg.
- lucifargundam 2y agoAm I the only one here who instantly redirected mentally to "Conker's Bad Fur Day" ?
- smolder 2y agoI thought of it, too. It must have been a reference, given that he was a squirrel.
- lisper 2y agoIf, like me, you were wondering WTF this is all about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLGuZZraIqg
- roydivision 2y agoWhat a bunch of nutters.
- nobody3030403 2y agolmao this is always so funny to me. This is all that matters to these dudes.
- nobody3030403 2y agolmao this is so funny to me, these cheaters and swindlers. This is all that matters to these guys at the end of the day? So lame.
- kaleidobug 2y agoI’m pondering why and how this made to the top of HN.
- zeristor 2y agoBut was it a cheeser?
- zeristor 2y agoI developed a strange fascination with Horse Chestnut trees. I remember in the nineties when I noticed Horse Chestnuts laying on the pavement, and felt a tinge of sadness kids would normally by scouting areas to pick up all the chestnuts like competitive squirrels.
- blitzar 2y agoIt's Not Cricket
- xg15 2y agoGotta admit, it takes some nuts of steel to pull this through.
- jessekv 2y agoI would not want to be conked on the head with that one.
- Donpayneuk 2y agoJust found this on the Conker championships - https://youtu.be/q8CYrM9xkUc https://youtu.be/q8CYrM9xkUc
- Donpayneuk 2y agoI just found this on the conker championships, quite funny. https://youtu.be/q8CYrM9xkUc https://youtu.be/q8CYrM9xkUc
- falcor84 2y agoI'm just amazed to see that this was not The Onion
- oblio 2y agoThe British are living proof of the fact that amazing things[1] can be achieved when the place you live in is extremely boring. [1] For varied definitions of "amazing", such as "conquer countries 10x your size", "invent 20 sports the entire world plays", etc.
- xg15 2y ago> conquer countries 10x your size > invent 20 sports the entire world plays I mean, the two are kind of related, causally...
- oblio 2y agoFootball wasn't spread (just) through conquest. The UK never conquered Argentina or Brazil yet if you'd look at football fans in both countries you'd think Argentina or Brazil not only invented football itself, but they also built an entire cult around it :-p
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- thruway516 2y agoFootball/soccer is a British import likely 'invented' somewhere else
- lukas099 2y agoHow do you know?
- thruway516 2y agohttps://shorturl.at/BzGuM https://shorturl.at/BzGuM
- aspenmayer 2y ago
- msie 2y agoI had a hard time figuring out where the cheating comes in. Especially with the metal chestnut. Marking the strings so they break more easily?
- JetSetIlly 2y agoIf he sees his opponent with a marked string, he knows it's time to bring out the metal chestnut.
- mykowebhn 2y agoSeriously, who gives a cheat?
- senda 2y agoSome stuff really makes you lose faith in humanity.
- ndndjdjdn 2y agoConkers are just cool things. Like unwrapping a present to get a perfect little gift.
- noobermin 2y ago[flagged]
- misja111 2y agoI love how your comment is assuming that anybody here who's not British must be American. I'm Dutch and had never heard of conker before either.
- Super_Jambo 2y agoI think the assumption is more that someone who's offended that the Guardian didn't explain a mainstay British playground game to their readers... Is probably from the USA.
- datavirtue 2y agoMainstay? First I'm hearing of it. I thought it was an onion article at first. It's really hard to tell when British people are serious sometimes. "Conker King"...like, WTH?
- foldr 2y ago>Mainstay? First I'm hearing of it. You say this as if you were British, but then the rest of your comment seems to suggest that you're not (in which case it's not surprising that you might be unaware of some aspects of British playground culture).
- mattmanser 2y agoI 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?
- bombcar 2y agoI’m not even British but I’ve read enough novels to know of those things.
- fedeb95 2y agothanks for making me discover this sport.
- MrJagil 2y agoApparently he has been cleared by VAR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8
- speerer 2y agoAre all TV newsreaders as aggressive and cynical as this?
- swores 2y agoNot 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/mediaViewer?currentTweet=1846114715312754744¤tTweetUser=KayBurley&mode=profile 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).
- djohnston 2y agoI wonder if we'll find it's related to the infestation of gambling in sports these days
- tontonius 2y agoVAR evidence leads judge to say that it would have been "impossible for him to cheat at that point". Dang, please update the link title to reflect that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8
- sourcepluck 2y agoCan 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.
- Havoc 2y agoWait how do airplanes fit into all this?
- dilap 2y agoI 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.
- sourcepluck 2y agoCorrect, yes.
- walthamstow 2y agoDid 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.
- sourcepluck 2y agoWe 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!
- throwaway918299 2y agowelp, looks like a conker’s having a bad fur day over this
- FrustratedMonky 2y agoRight, 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 anything on the level of Boris slipping through a political pickle. No, no. We're going full Del Boy here, a right dodgy geezer's guide to giving your conker a bit of extra “oomph” without your opponent being any the wiser. First thing’s first, get yourself a conker that’s already hard as nails. If you rock up with a squishy, fresh-from-the-tree conker, you might as well bring a soggy chip to a fistfight. So, what’s the plan, Stan? You do what any self-respecting trickster does: you cheat. But in the most British way possible—subtle, sneaky, and with enough charm to get away with it. The Vinegar Trick Ah, the vinegar trick! An old-school classic, passed down from generation to generation like your nan’s dodgy trifle recipe. You soak your conker in vinegar overnight, let it dry out, and voilà! Hard as a rock. This trick’s so crafty, you’d think it was devised by the fox that pinched the farmer’s best hen. Just make sure it doesn’t reek like a fish and chip shop, or your mates will twig faster than you can say “Bob’s your uncle!” The Oven Gambit Now, if you’re really feeling a bit more “James Bond,” you can stick your conker in the oven. But let’s not go burning the house down like a right muppet. Give it a low and slow roast, just enough to toughen it up. Just don’t let your mum catch you, or you’ll be in for a bollocking. Nothing says “I’ve been up to no good” quite like the smell of chargrilled conker wafting through the kitchen at half-past ten. Nail Varnish Shenanigans Feeling a bit flash, are we? Maybe you’re one of those who likes to add a touch of sparkle to your dastardly deeds. A sly coat of clear nail varnish will do the trick. It gives your conker an unbreakable shell—like a Ford Fiesta that somehow survives every banger race. Your opponent won’t know what hit ‘em, and you’ll be grinning like a Cheshire cat when your conker smashes theirs to smithereens. Dodgy Drilling If you’re the type who thinks “go big or go home,” then this one’s for you, mate. Hollow out the inside of your conker and fill it with something solid—maybe a bit of lead or, if you’re feeling particularly sneaky, a cheeky bit of cement. Just make sure your drill work isn’t as dodgy as the bloke who sold you that knock-off Rolex down the market, or you’ll end up in the doghouse faster than a footballer caught with his pants down. The Ol’ Switcheroo This one’s for the true legends of skulduggery. You show up with your ordinary, bog-standard conker, all innocent-like. Then, when your mate’s not looking—probably distracted by some bloke in the corner shouting about the price of pints—you whip out your pre-hardened, vinegar-soaked, oven-baked, nail-varnished super conker. It’s the ultimate con, and if you pull it off, you’ll feel like you’ve just nicked the crown jewels.
- _fat_santa 2y agoApparently he was cleared of cheating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJKIbq2FuG8
- ThePhysicist 2y agoThat's the most hilariously British thing I've seen in a long time. Their expert is even wearing a melon hat with a string of chestnuts to the live interview.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y agoI 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.
- hacky_engineer 2y agoIn the video they mention it was painted and looked like a genuine conker.
- Tarsul 2y agoHe does not say that he is cleared, he says that their initial investigation indicates that he's innocent but they will corrobarate within the next 24h or so.
- andrepd 2y agoInstantly reminded of this gem of a news report: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53w9E774fGE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53w9E774fGE
- fauria 2y agoConkers 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 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers
- sedatk 2y agoI thank you on behalf of every non-Brit in the universe.
- MarcelOlsz 2y agoAs 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.
- fauria 2y agoYou 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.
- sedatk 2y agoThanks and enjoy!
- ktarsk 2y agoFolks, you all get it wrong! This is "hacking a real world system for your advantage" (YC interview question)!
- DrillShopper 2y agoIt's only cheating if my competitors do it!/s
- nemo44x 2y agoThe version of this game played by American kids is (was?) “pencil popping”. The idea being you take turns trying to break your opponents pencil by flicking it at theirs while they hold it on both ends.
- divs1210 2y agoPinewood Derby vibes
- Loughla 2y agoI remember being so upset as a kid that my pinewood derby car never looked as good as anyone else's and that it never won. I didn't realize as a youth that the parents had built the other kids' cars, whereas I built mine entirely on my own. Now that I have children, they, too, are feeling the grim disatisfaction of a stacked competition by losing to the other kids' parents in the pinewood derby. I genuinely credit that experience with my attitude toward life (don't take anything too seriously, because everything we do is temporary, competition (I will work on my own when possible, to do my best, and if I win it is a reflection on my own skills and abilities), and helped me understand that no matter how good I am at something there is always someone who takes that thing far too seriously and will cheat to win.
- bbno4 2y agoabsolutely fascinating. conkers is an amazing game
- sandebert 2y agoStop the steel.
- dave333 2y agoPlayed conkers as a kid around age 7-9. We had several horse chestnut trees along our road and I would search in amongst the leaves everyday on the way to and from school. Drill a hole in each and thread about 18 inches of string through the hole and tie a knot so the nut cannot fly off when you swing the nut at your opponent's conker. Challenge others in a duel to the death of one or other of the conkers. Draw lots for who gets first swing. Loser holds the conker out dangling vertically at the end of the string. Other player takes a shot by holding their conker in their fingers well above the other players and pulls down sharply on the string releasing the conker from the fingers in such a way that it hits the dangling conker hard. Assuming both conkers survive you reverse rolls and continue. Winning conkers names increment so a one-er, two-er, three-er and so on. I once had a seventeen-er but the accumulated battle damage eventually spelled disaster. The World Championship seems very fishy to me - firstly someone involved in setting up the conkers (inflating the footballs) should not be a competitor. Second having been caught with a steel imitation conker in his pocket how can he be cleared? He can't prove he didn't use it surreptitiously and so should be disqualified.
- RandomThoughts3 2y ago> The World Championship seems very fishy to me - firstly someone involved in setting up the conkers (inflating the footballs) should not be a competitor. Clearly, considering the incredible stake at play here, it’s entirely outrageous. /s > Second having been caught with a steel imitation conker in his pocket how can he be cleared? He can't prove he didn't use it surreptitiously and so should be disqualified. The game is recorded so you can tell which conker he did or did not use. But just in case you didn’t notice, the reason it’s a media sensation is because the whole thing is ridiculous and therefore funny. There is no point in cheating at conker.
- bitbasher 2y agoAs someone that roasts and eats chestnuts, it's kind of odd to play with them. I suppose you ate many and also played, or are they simply not eaten there?
- dave333 2y ago
- HarHarVeryFunny 2y agoReminds me of trying to cheat myself in 70's by making a lead conker (painted to be right color). It got confiscated at school as being dangerous (lump of lead on a string) before I could even use it. Conkers is half about cheating anyway - baking it to make it rock hard, or soaking in vinegar to make it rubbery and resilient.
- flufluflufluffy 2y agowtf is conker
- matltc 2y agoHad this cart at one point. Unfortunately it and a lot of other valuable N64 carts got stolen when my house was robbed. At least they left SSB
- Rychard 2y agoI think you're referring to a similarly named N64 game. This story is about a game played using the seeds of horse chestnut trees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers
- liendolucas 2y agoThank goodness, we were all so worried about the conkers world championship... Now that the whole thing has been settled down I can finally go to sleep.
- petesergeant 2y agoIf this story interests you, you may enjoy watching the TV show The Detectorists
- nevertoolate 2y agoI told rules of a strange game of chestnuts to my wife and she decided I’m making this up, the game doesn’t exist. Even after showing the video in the linked article she was suspicious that I might have generated the story with AI.
- m0d0nne11 2y agoWait, what?! The guy who preps the competition pieces miraculously wins the competition? I assume this entire scenario is just one very wry, very subtle bit of Brit humour, yes?