PatrickLondon

http://www.worldconkerchampionships....2007_event.php

audere_est_facere

Now we really are talking about a man's sport.

Audere- currently his office champion with a sixer.

PalenQ

even for Brits this sounds a little 'nutty'

FainaAgain

And the winner gets to eat his chestnut roasted?

audere_est_facere

You can't eat conkers. Don't you have conkers (horse chestnuts)? Poor Americans. No conkers.

PalenQ

we 'av 'em: Buckeyes they call them here - same nut, same tree - Horse chestnut.

FainaAgain

Audere, when I lived in Belarus, only children played with them. We'd find nice round ones, make a hole, put a thin rubber band through, and played like a yo-yo.

Never heard of eating them, though. Some "babushkas" used them for medicinal purposes, don't remember what for, probably back pain.

Here in the US I've learned one can eat them.

PalenQ

naw only squirrels eat them here

jody

Horse Chestnuts ( Buckeyes ) and chestnuts are 2 different species. Horse Chestnuts are poisonous so I hope no one is eating them!

The edible American chestnut was practically wiped out by blight but is making a resurgence in certain areas, where it is being replanted.

fnarf999

Nothing beats a bag of roasted chestnuts from a cart in NYC on a cold fall evening.

jody

Well maybe one from a cart in London or Paris does!!!

VirginiaC

First: Polish two horse chestnuts against your shirt or jeans until they glow.
Second: Pierce each with a nail or other handy implement.
Third: Thread your shoelace through the holes and knot.
Fourth: Twirl the chestnuts with all your might and let fly. First one to get the chestnuts to hang on the telephone wires is the winner.
Fifth: Limp home with one loose shoe and explain how you lost your shoelace to your mother. She will not say "wait till your father gets home." She knows he will understand.

stokebailey

AESCULUS HIPPOCASTANUM is the horse chestnut; the conker part can cause gastroenteritis if eaten.

CASTANEA DENTATA is chestnut tree, like the kind Paris is full of. That's the edible roasting one.

audere_est_facere

Virginia: That's what you do with them in the USA?

Here:

Scour ground under conker tree for good conkers (the ideal conker isn't round, but has a sharp edge)

Pierce with nail (or failing that get out the compass your mother bought you (this is the only time you will ever use it).

Thread shoelace through hole and secure with a knot.

Find a foeman worthy of your steel.

Throw down conker gauntlet

Take alternate hits at foeman's conker until one shatters

Stamp on foeman's vanquished conker.

You now have a oner.

Find another foeman.

Repeat

You now have a twoer

and so on.

There is all sorts of skulduggery afoot with vinegar and ovens. But the Americas are not ready for such arcane knowledge.

Por Americans - no conkers.

annhig

hi, the fun police got onto this a few years ago, and were insisting that the competitors wore goggles!

on this morning's Today prog [BBC rad.4] they were publicising a conker championship being run by the health and safety guys who are fed with being blamed for trees being cut down, balloon animals being banned etc., when it's usually just some jobsworth getting his kicks.

regards, ann

PatrickLondon

>>Scour ground under conker tree for good conkers<<

How very respectable.

The thing to do, as any fule kno, is to chuck sticks at the great big one hanging just out of reach, until either it falls off the tree or someone comes to complain about the greenhouse/car windows you've smashed.

audere_est_facere

Where I come from is VERY leafy - so no need to chuck sticks like some sort of urban urchin. Gosh at that rate we'd be going up chimneys or working in a match factory next.

PatrickLondon

So was where I came from. The trouble was these larcenous outsiders snaffling all the good ones that had fallen.

VirginiaC

audere:

that's what we used to do in my long ago youth. haven't seen many horse chestnut trees in these parts lately. all the best ones used to be in the cemetery, a place I no longer visit for fun.

stokebailey

Funny, VIrginiaC, but the best ones around these parts are also in the cemetery. Sometimes we go there in the fall for a picnic and to sketch the stone angels. (muse on mortality, too, if in the mood.)

Getting into a conker match there would seem somehow disrespectful.