Odd questions for Brits (Others can weigh in, too)

[apple_pathways]

So, I'm writing a fic, and I need to know:

There's a game we play in the US called chicken fight. (According to that Wikipedia article, it is also called Cherry Drop, Shoulder Wars, or Darling Pickie.) It's played at the beach or in a pool. It consists of two teams of two people each: one team member sits on the shoulders of the other team member, and tries to knock their opponent off the shoulders of their teammate.

It's generally played with a girl on the shoulders and a guy down below, and often signals the beginning of Sexy Pooltime Shenanigans. (Or at least that's how it's been used in my experience. I've also played with all girls, but that also tends to lead to shenanigans.)

Here's a video, if you still don't know what I'm on about:
(WARNING: Video is accompanied by Obnoxious Adolescent Commentary!)

So the question: do you have this in the UK? (Or anywhere else?) What is it called? (Oh, and before you accuse me of being lazy: I plan on doing a Google search and trolling through the usual American-to-Britspeak blogs when I get back from work, but it's a bit obscure, and I thought maybe someone could help me out in the meantime!)

Americans: what are your experiences of the game? What do you call it?

Comments

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

You know what: I don't know many people with pools, either! Everytime I can remember playing it was in a public pool. :P (I don't know if this is just fueling the "Americans are shameless and vulgar" stereotype...) As teenagers, we tended not to let the presence of families and whatnot get in the way of our shameless poolside flirting. And when I got older (college age) I had a lot of friends who lived in apartment complexes off campus. We would hop the fence to the apartment pool at night.

Hmm, gonna have to do some more research about the British Summer Experience when I get home!

[ladybracknell.livejournal.com]

This is going to play right into the sterotype of us Brits as uptight and repressed and all very proper, but here we have anti-flirting rules in pools and anti-gymnastics rules. This poster was in every pool I ever swam in:



I feel I've missed out, lol.

[planejane.livejournal.com]

I remember that poster!!!

[katyscarlett76.livejournal.com]

lol I was gonna mention that poster!

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Ha! I love that poster! Very informative. We have similar posters up at every public pool in the US, minus the bit about 'petting'--probably not because we welcome that sort of thing in public pools, but because we're so sexually repressed we'd be embarrassed to put it on a poster!

However, most smaller pools would be without a lifeguard, and there would be no one to enforce the rules against gymnastics and whatnot. Hence the fact that we played anyways. :P

[apple-pathways.livejournal.com]

Also, I am still laughing at the idea of anti-flirting laws... :P

[ravelled-ribbon.livejournal.com]

Actually they're anti making out laws. It just looks like flirting on the poster because we are too repressed to even show kissing.

[bwblack.livejournal.com]

What I like most about this is the names of things. Bombing we call Cannon Balling. Ducking= we (although in this case we might just be my family) call dunking. And acrobatics and gymnastics are called that here but would probably fall under general rough housing in the pool sign.