World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

I 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.

I 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.

Mainstay? 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?

>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).

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?

“That’s an odd name! I’d a called em fuzzwozzers.”

It certainly is a mainstay. A yearly treat which children love. In Ireland I was taught this song in school: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bhebvq0O4GY (and I still remember all the words)

> Mainstay?

For sure it is. Every boy (and probably some girls, but never seen myself) plays conkers and likely puts their life in great peril climbing horse chestnut trees to gather the best conkers before anyone else gets them.

When I think back now to some of the massive (old) trees I used to climb and the action of shaking the branches to try to get the chestnuts to drop (whilst the branch is breaking underneath you, 100ft up), I’m surprised I’m here to talk about it!

This is a serious business.

I’m not even British but I’ve read enough novels to know of those things.

What is a pooh stick and is it related to a poop knife

We have conkers in London.

You and your friends get a stick each, together you drop it off a bridge over a stream (upstream side), then you run to the other side of the bridge, whichever stick appears first is the winner.

I'm pretty sure it's you assuming that the comment is assuming that.

Not to disparage your heroics, but I am fairly sure you weren't 100ft up, and the tale grew taller in the telling.

Conkers is good fun. Though a bit dangerous for modern sensibilities perhaps.

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 think the assumption is that the assumption assumes asinine intent akin to adopting ambiguous alliteration.

Some trees are pretty damn good for climbing. It scares the shit out of me now, but I’m fairly certain I’ve gotten to some 7-10 meters up. That’s only like 30 feet though, I don’t think I’ve even seen trees that were 100ft high xD

You know, conkers is exactly the sort of sport that makes a good anime. Everyman protagonist finds the world's hardest conker, takes on a series of increasingly absurd super-conkerists, Baki the Grappler style, with frequent informational asides about the art and science of conkers, and eventually faces the mysterious Conker Lord ... who turns out to be his long lost older brother!

Maybe, but I took a guess based on how high horse chestnut trees can get. I’m almost sure I am underestimating. The best ones I used to climb were those that lined the entry to a country estate and they were clearly very old and were absolutely huge.

A horse chestnut tree can reach heights of approximately 30 to 40 meters (about 98 to 131 feet) [1].

I used to go pretty damn far up, one time really shitting myself up as the thinner weaker branches started breaking away as I was climbing higher.

It genuinely felt like, even if probably not entirely true, that I was sticking my head out of the top of the tree before it started giving way. It’s a memory that will stick with me forever!

Of course I can’t prove this, but it’s not entirely implausible that a very old horse chestnut tree could be over 100 feet high and it’s not entirely implausible that it’s possible to climb up a tree of that size. So I guess either take my word for it or not, your call ;)

[1] https://directree.org/horse-chestnut-aesculus-hippocastanum/

I've been to this, it's great:

https://strawbear.org.uk/

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.