Oddly oddly onker my first conker!
Boss: We're all overworked, tired and morale is low. What are some ideas we can come up with to keep the energy up?Male group member: Let's play conkers in the office.
Group (minus Eleanor): Yay, conkers!!!
Eleanor (looking completely puzzled): Huh??
So here it has come to pass that I am learning about another great British sport (I use that term loosely) that only he Brits play. Perhaps it is like Cricket and Snooker that they have passed along to their former colonies, but from what I can find out, the game is apparently limited to this small island I have come to call home. Lucky me.
If, like me, you are wondering what in the world conkers is, please read on...
CONKERS: A FAVOURITE CHILDREN'S GAME
During the months of September and October, a favourite playground game is 'conkers,' a game which has been played every autumn for generations.
On the first day of 'conker season' you should say 'Oddly oddly onker my first conker.' Ok...(??)
What is a conker? A conker is the seed of the horse chestnut tree - a hard brown nut with a spiky protective outer casing. They fall from trees when they are ripe during the autumn months. Conkers is the name given to the game played by two people at a time. The first recorded game of Conkers using horse chestnuts was on the Isle of Wight in 1848. Until then, children used snail shells or hazelnuts.
How do you play conkers? Apparently, choosing your conker is critical. It should be firm, symmetrical and uncracked. You're supposed to drill a hole through the middle and thread a 'strong piece of string 25cm long' through the hole and tie a knot at one end.
Then, players take it in turns to hit each other's conker, letting it dangle on the full length of the string while the other player hits. To hit, players hold the string in one hand with the conker held above it in the other hand, then swipe at the opponent's conker, letting go of the nut but keeping hold of the string. If you manage to smash your opponent's conker to pieces, so that it comes off the string, your conker gets the score that your opponent's conker had, plus one for beating the opponent's conker itself. So if two 'none-ers' play, the surviving conker will become a 'one-er'. But if a 'two-er' plays a 'three-er', the surviving conker will become a 'six-er.'
In 2000 a survey of British schools showed that many were not allowing children to play Conkers as headteachers were afraid of the legal consequences if children were injured while playing the game. In 2004 a headmaster was reported to be outfitting pupils with goggles to play the game. This in turn prompted DJs on BBC Radio 1 to start their own Radio 1 Conker Championships. Top Gear later did a show where they played a game of conkers using cranes instead of string, and mobile homes instead of conkers making the comment as they put on the goggles joking "I now feel perfectly happy about being hit in the face by a caravan".
The real trick seems to be in 'preparing' the conker for playing. Much discussion went around our offices about the best way to prepare your conker, ranging from baking the conker in the oven, to soaking it in vinegar overnight. But my favorite tip came from the evening news (yes, this sport was actually highlighted by the BBC as a decent-sized news piece). The World Conker Champion (an 86-year-old man) says the best trick is 'passing the conker through a pig.' He then went on to describe this technique in detail, but I will leave that to your imagination...
You gotta love the Brits...I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried!
posted by Eleanor @ 8:03 pm
1 Comments:
Uh oh, you've got comment spam.
We used to play this game in Puerto Rico when we were kids. We called it "Gallitos" and I'd totally forgotten about it until I saw your post. It was really fun.
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