You're missing the World Conker Championships:<BR>http://www.bbc.co.uk/northamptonshir...nkers_01.shtml

Funny you should mention this. Once we drove out of our way to visit Ashton since that's my last name. I had my picture taken standing under the town sign. And in the center of town the men were playing a game that looked like a cross between boules and lawn bowling. I take it that's Conker?

I thought Conker was the game with 2 chestnuts.

It is!!<BR>Recently banned in some school playgrounds in UK as it is considered dangerous!!!<BR>Regards<BR>Maggie.

Patrick #2, you thread the conker on to a piece of srting and the aim is to bash someone else's conker so that it breaks. The conke scoring the most breaks is the CHAMPION!<BR>It IS dangerous if you miss the other conker.

My namesake has got me intrigued. It sounds to me as though the people he saw might just have thought the French played boules the way we play bowls, i.e. rolling the ball along the ground even if it's stony. One way to do it I suppose. Or maybe they were trying to invent a new 'ancient rural tradition', like dwile-flonking (and I didn't make that up - some pub landlord did about 30 years ago).<BR><BR>And in my childhood the dangerous bit about conkers was staying underneath the tree when you'd chucked the stick to knock conkers down in the first place. The game itself always struck me as a bit of a disappointment

My namesake has got me intrigued. It sounds to me as though the people he saw might just have thought the French played boules the way we play bowls, i.e. rolling the ball along the ground even if it's stony. One way to do it I suppose. Or maybe they were trying to invent a new 'ancient rural tradition', like dwile-flonking (and I didn't make that up - some pub landlord did about 30 years ago).<BR><BR>And in my childhood the dangerous bit about conkers was staying underneath the tree when you'd chucked the stick to knock conkers down in the first place. The game itself always struck me as a bit of a disappointment.