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
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?
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.
I also hope you see the irony of your ways.
The HSE is pretty clear it doesn't justify it:
> The HSE said the safety risk from playing conkers was "incredibly low and not worth bothering about"
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/conker...