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Out of context: Reply #75116
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- Nairn12
At a kid's birthday party today and I'm yakking away with an Italian mum. At some point I notice that my bag has fallen over and out spilled a horsechestnut/conker from a side pocket where I keep them. I pick it up and show it to her enthustiastically before putting it back in my bag "A good one" i suggest. She asks, quite rightly, "What?" and I admit that I've started my annual horsechestnut collecting. "What? Why?" she asks. I'm not entirely sure. I suggest that perhaps I might plant some (I have in the past), but more likely I'll fill a plastic bag with them, put them aside for use and then in four months find the same bag again at the bottom of a mostly unnused shelf, but this time covered in blue mould and swear at myself for squandering such wealth.
I murmur something along the lines of "I dunno, I just collect them, I don't know why".
About a minute later, I look over at some other Dad on another table and see in his hands a couple of conkers, which he seems quite proud of - I prod the Italian mum, "See? He's got some too".
A few minutes after another Dad, a mutual friend of the Italian mum and I sidles up, and what does he have in his hands? Conkers.
Why does he have them? He's not entirely sure either, but he is quite proud of one - a large one, but one that was an equal part of two in the overall nut, so round on the outside, flat on the inside. "These are called cheese graters" he says, knowingly.
I ask what that means and he admits "I have no idea", and we go back to our mutual appreciation of conkers whilst Italian mother is no more enlightened and trys to change conversation.
I don't know what hold conkers have over the average British male, but it is a phenomenon worthy of investigation.
- Too funny I knew instinctively that this was a British story before I even got to the bottom lol_niko
- That's nuts ; )antimotion
- ha haNutter
- the look shiny in the light... always the cheapest and one of the best tricks - properties in aesthetics .. .natural or artificial..neverscared
- I’m amazed the party didn’t become a circle of the men giving tips for techniques that harden the conkers in preparation for battle.Wolfboy
- i have some in my bag right now too. Right little beauties tooIanbolton
- Autumn intensification of the forager instinctdrgs
- @wolfboy - I think it was somewhat similar to nuclear generation where there were just too many foreign mums, acting as neutron dampeners to full bloke fissionNairn
- @ianbolton - we should start a thread!
QBN Conkers 2023Nairn - What is a conker?monospaced
- https://i.imgur.com/…pango
- if you got a cheesegrater, because of its shape, you always hoped it'd be THE one that split all the others. sadly that never seemed to be the way for me.hans_glib
- Maybe the gathering of conkers is programmed into us from wayback hunter-gatherer times. haha.microkorg
- Qonkers '23imbecile
- I'm 42. I've never heard the word Conkers or Horsechestnut before. I don't care for either of those words.bogue
- lol, alright Dr Seuss :)Nairn
- There’s a world championship. Wild https://youtu.be/VHO…scarabin
- +1 hans, sorry, I forgot to post prior.
I'll relay to him :)Nairn