World Conker Championships

October 10, 2004 3:20 PM

World Conker Championships
posted by Mwongozi (9 comments total)

This kind of stuff is exactly why people think the English are daft. But its a good daft.
posted by billsaysthis at 5:17 PM on October 10, 2004

What's Conker?
posted by spacewrench at 8:21 PM on October 10, 2004

Yeah...
posted by hob at 9:13 PM on October 10, 2004

that's weird...i was just watching a news report (ITV? BBC?) about how elementary schools in England are making kids wear goggles for this now.
posted by amberglow at 9:14 PM on October 10, 2004

I think someone in England, a long time ago, must have got "World Conker" confused with "Conquer the World."
posted by kindall at 9:16 PM on October 10, 2004

Is conkers really only played in the UK?
posted by salmacis at 1:23 AM on October 11, 2004

I think so, sal. I never heard of it before that news report i saw the other day. There are some other Europeans in that link tho, so i guess they play it.
posted by amberglow at 5:22 AM on October 11, 2004

Ok, so I get the part about the chestnuts and swinging them and the like, but at what point does the gigantic opera-singing mountain of poo come in? Is he the regional champion?
posted by phong3d at 9:29 AM on October 11, 2004

I finally understand this passage from Portrait of the Artist:

-Tell us, Dedalus, do you kiss your mother before you go to bed?

Stephen answered:

-I do.

Wells turned to the other fellows and said:

- O, I say, here’s a fellow says he kisses his mother every night before he goes to bed.

The other fellows stopped their game and turned round, laughing. Stephen blushed under their eyes and said:

-I do not.

Wells said:

-O, I say, here’s a fellow says he doesn’t kiss his mother before he goes to bed.

They all laughed again. Stephen tried to laugh with them. He felt his whole body hot and confused in a moment. What was the right answer to the question? He had given two and still Wells laughed. But Wells must know the right answer for he was in third of grammar. He tried to think of Wells’s mother but he did not dare to raise his eyes to Wells’s face. He did not like Wells’s face. It was Wells who had shouldered him into the square ditch the day before because he would not swop his little snuffbox for Wells’s seasoned hacking chestnut, the conqueror of forty. It was a mean thing to do; all the fellows said it was. And how cold and slimy the water had been! And a fellow had once seen a big rat jump plop into the scum.

posted by boo at 3:39 PM on October 11, 2004 [1 favorite]