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World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

(www.theguardian.com)
424 points notamy | 1 comments | 15 Oct 24 03:12 UTC | HN request time: 0.289s | source
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noobermin ◴[15 Oct 24 09:38 UTC] No.41846756[source]▶
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misja111 ◴[15 Oct 24 09:45 UTC] No.41846797[source]▶
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.
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Super_Jambo ◴[15 Oct 24 09:49 UTC] No.41846822[source]▶
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.

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datavirtue ◴[15 Oct 24 10:40 UTC] No.41847144[source]▶
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?
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louthy ◴[15 Oct 24 11:23 UTC] No.41847374[source]▶
> 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.

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eru ◴[15 Oct 24 12:12 UTC] No.41847732[source]▶
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.

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1. Aeolun ◴[15 Oct 24 12:23 UTC] No.41847822[source]▶
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