Thursday, October 06, 2005

Where have all the conker stories gone?

It wasn't just National Poetry Day I was writing about a year ago. Looking through the archive from October last year I find that I spent a lot of time discussing reports that schools were banning children from playing conkers because it was too dangerous.

This year there have been no such stories. Why is this?

Explanation 1: Autumn has come late this year, proving the global warming theorists wrong. This is unlikely to be true: a late autumn would have been taken as evidence for global warming just as readily as an early one.

Explanation 2: Every one has got more sensible since last year and realised that it is silly to make a fuss about conkers. This is self-evidently absurd.

Explanation 3: Today's children have been won over by the attractions of DVDs, play stations and masturbation and no longer want to do anything as old-fashioned and uncool as playing conkers.

My money is on 3.

2 comments:

Tom Barney said...

Explanation 4: the press has got bored with reporting stories about conkers. Isn't this the likeliest of all?

Anonymous said...

The kids round Durham still seem to be into conkers. Or at least I keep seeing them throwing huge lumps of wood at horse chestnut trees - I can only assume they want the conkers for the traditional reasons...