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They 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 conk
by butterfly42069 2y ago
They 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.
- red_admiral 2y agoConkers, bulldog, smoking behind the bike sheds (ok vaping these days), and porn (nowadays on screens rather than naughty magazines) ... a lot about British schools can be summed up in this quote: “What exactly are you so happy about?' Harry asked her.'Oh Harry, don't you see?' Hermione breathed. 'If she could have done one thing to make absolutely sure that every single person in this school will read your interview, it was banning it!”
- philipwhiuk 2y agoAnd they are generally banned in 1 school from one incident by one head trying to quell anger from parents. The ban is generally lifted or just not enforced at all after a year or two. For starters the playground monitors have more important stuff to do than remember the list of banned activities and try to enforce them.
- butterfly42069 2y agoWell it is banned in schools. I'm not sure how many adults you believe actually play conkers, beyond a few nutters (sic), but its mainly been banned for the people that used to actually enjoy it, kids. I do wonder if by banning it in schools it will get less and less common till it disappears. I suppose you predictably think that's nonsense. But pedantry aside, its banned for the people who used to play it most and enjoy it, at the place they did just that.
- Symbiote 2y agoYou're downvoted because you're repeating unfounded tabloid rage-bait, hours after someone else posted a reliable source showing the opposite.
- butterfly42069 2y agoAh yes your experience of a 2008 BBC news article from Copenhagen outweighs my lived, witnessed reality. How could I be so clueless?
- Timwi 2y agoI would assume you got downvoted because you feel for a particularly implausible myth.
- butterfly42069 2y agoIndeed, a myth. One "disproven" by BBC news articles from 2008 when I have seen contrary evidence with my own eyes. Believe it or not the world has come on a long way in 16 years.
- PhasmaFelis 2y agohttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7637605.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7637605.stm
- blitzar 2y agoA quick google will get you websites of primary schools up and down this great nation with photos of their Conkers champions holding up their trophies. As for "the law" - from a 2019 petition to make conkers legal again: There's no law or government policy banning children from playing conkers, so we're not sure exactly what you'd like the Government or Parliament to do. https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/238105 https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/238105
- hardlianotion 2y agoI haven't lost an eye to a conker, but I did laugh. EDIT: And now I feel guilty for doing so.
- ungreased0675 2y agoHow is it banned? Banned in schools you mean? Because I can’t see how authorities could ban anyone from picking up a conker from the ground and tying a string to it. On a different note, if you’re just pulling a random one out of a bag, what is the competitive aspect? Is there a technique involved? Or just RNG?
- Nursie 2y agoIIRC at some point schools decided to put a stop to it (it was a popular playground game in Autumn) because of the possibility of injury. Or that might have just been a tabloid outrage-bait headline.
- ascorbic 2y agoIt's such a persistent myth that a health and safety organisation decided to sponsor the championships to try and debunk the idea. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7637605.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7637605.stm
- Nursie 2y agoInteresting! I have a weird memory of seeing kids in safety glasses on the tv sometime around the turn of the century… Looks like, as with all good myths, there’s a kernel of something resembling a twisted half-truth that got blown up out of hand - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/dec/09/conkers-goggles-myth-health-safety https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/dec/09/conker...
- butterfly42069 2y agoIt is banned in schools. As I said in another comment, that outlaws it for the vast majority of players at the place they used to play it. Believe it or not adults playing conkers or people playing conkers outside of schools isn't a common pass time. It is pretty much RNG, though you can massively nerf a conkers structural integrity by making the hole through the middle poorly, so there are some techniques. People also used to use thicker shoelaces like in vans, which I think made the centre more solid. I've never run an experiment to verify the difference that might make.