The Winkers vs the Flonkers
We鈥檝e always been a sociable bunch here at 桃色视频. 桃色视频 Students' Union currently has over 250 societies, more than any other university, covering a wide range of interests. From knitting and crochet all the way to cocktail making and K-Pop, there鈥檚 definitely something for everyone.
Although staff are welcome to join many of the student societies, there are dedicated staff groups for informal social and recreational activities. Whether you want to join a book or walking group, or show your voice off with the choir, there鈥檚 no excuse to not get involved. We even have a range of networking groups that bring together colleagues from across campus to share ideas, information and best practice on work matters.
But, way back in 1968, there was a clash between the Tiddly Winks and Dwile Flonking societies - we delved into the Modern Records Centre archive to find out more.
As reported in the May 1968 issue of 'Campus', available for the princely sum of 6 old pence, a meeting of the Tiddly Winks society was cancelled due to threats of violence from the Dwile Flonkers. The meeting was due to be attended by Mr Thomas 鈥榝ingers鈥� Reed, Executive member of the Southwest Tiddly Winks Division, who was there to showcase the skills of left-handed cross winking. But he was soon persuaded otherwise when the threats from the flonkers started to come in.
The controversy between the two groups stemmed from Mr Reed suggesting that tiddly winkers should be able to use the beer mugs of the flonkers as receptacles for their winks. Well, not surprisingly, this did not go down well and the flonkers were ready to demonstrate outside the meeting. They maintained that there was never any intention of violence towards Mr Reed, they only had plans to boycott the meeting and create a guard of honour with their flonking poles, complete with wet sponges on the end.
Further revelations about the meeting came to light from a camera crew who were filming a documentary about Mr Reed. They uncovered written evidence that the meeting was only being arranged to create a riot and ultimately provide good publicity for the tiddly winking movement and bad exposure for the flonkers!
What an absolute drama. Could you imagine anything like this happening on campus today? Who knows what would have happened if the meeting had actually taken place or how the stalemate between the winkers and the flonkers ended. Did they resolve their differences and carry on peacefully side by side?
And if you鈥檙e not sure what either Tiddly Winks or Dwile Flonking is, let us help you!
Dating back to 1888, Tiddly Winks is a game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called winks, a pot, which is the target, and a collection of squidgers, which are also discs. Players use a squidger, nowadays made of plastic, to shoot a wink into flight by flicking the squidger across the top of a wink and then over its edge, thereby propelling it into the air.
The attack objective of the game is to score points by sending your own winks into the pot. The defensive objective of the game is to prevent your opponents from potting their winks by squopping them: shooting your own winks to land on top of your opponents' winks. It was a quite a serious sport at one time with a number of university teams, and international matches were also played.
Dwile Flonking or nurdling is a British pub game played by two teams of twelve. One team form a circle and dance around in one direction. One member of the other team, the flonker, stands in the centre of the circle and rotates in the opposite direction, holding a beer-soaked cloth called a dwile on a pole. The flonker flings the cloth at the dancers, scoring points depending on where on the body they are hit, if they miss they must drink as a penalty.
In 2010, a dwile flonking competition replaced the drinking penalty with non-alcoholic drinks, following a local council decision that it would violate licensing restrictions intended to prevent binge drinking. The game is associated with the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. Although the game can supposedly be traced back to the 16th century, it is thought to have in fact been invented in the mid-1960s.
Were you a winker or a flonker, did you join any societies in your student days? Or are you a member of one of our staff groups and would like to tell people more? We'd love to hear from you.
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