Stile Cup 2023 - The Results Update!

So it's done! The #StileCup2023 is finished, with @Northlakesuk's double stone stiler just winning out by just 0.9% over @jenscotney's Peak District sloper. @PeterGWeather (Peter Gibb's - the former Met Office/TV weatherman, came in a creditable 4th overall, but had the distinction of trouncing my entry in round 1). I'm still not bitter....much 😂

Congrats to the winner., commiserations to everyone else who took part.

Key takeaway from this year is that whilst "swank" (fabulous landscapes, cute dogs etc) might get you through round 1, it's the actually stile that counts with 3 out of the 4 finalists (but arguably all of them) focusing on the still rather than the surroundings.

Roll on the 2024 competition!

If you want to be in it, make sure you follow @LakesStiles on Twitter.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/ 

Instagram: simon_hiscocks

It's back! Stile Cup 2023

Twitter as a platform comes in for a lot of criticism (sometimes rightly so), but for me one of it's greatest outputs is the annual #StileCup - this year #StileCup2023, run by the @LakesStiles Twitter account. The premise is simple and straightforward. Anyone can submit a photo of a stile by the designated closing date (it was earlier this month), and then by some dark magic, photos are randomly assigned to groups of three or four, and posted to Twitter, whereupon anyone who sees the post can vote for their favourite.

This goes on round by round in this knockout form until a winner is decided.

I first entered last year but disappointingly got the boot in round one (I wrote about it here) but have upped my game for this year's competition with a shot of a stile I came across whilst on holiday in Austria in September, which I'm hoping can at least make it to round 2 and improve my record in this competition.

Things can get quite tense, especially towards the latter stages of the competition, where lobbying for votes is an absolutely accepted norm (hint, hint - vote for me - it'll be under my Twitter name "Statto1927").

Interestingly, although it's called the "Stile Cup"and therefore ostensibly about the stile itself, you can certainly genuinely enhance your chances of progressing by ensuring that your photo of the stile also includes a cute dog (two is better) a fabulous landscape or nice sunset - as it seems in many cases people vote for the general content rather than only the actual stile. 

To see the quality of what you might be up against, see this tweet of the 2021 final 4, eventually won by Quintin Lake (bottom left shot). 

As an aside, @QuintinLake is well worth a follow. He's the chap who walked and photographed the entire coastline of Great Britain in his project "The Perimeter" over a period of 5 years.

All in all, the Stile Cup is a fabulous piece of social media fun that enlightens many for a week or so over this period of the year.

I'd urge you to get out and follow @LakeStiles, and me, and vote for my entry when you see it!!!

Thanks

Twitter: @Statto1927 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/ 

Instagram: simon_hiscocks

Stile Cup 2022 - Dumped out in Round 1

A few days ago I posted about the 2022 Stile Cup, a Twitter based "competition" where users can submit a photo of a favourite stile, and then entries are randomly drawn against each other in groups of four and voted on, until there's a winner. I first came across this last year, and decided on a last minute whim to enter this year, even though I didn't have a particularly good photo to submit.

Anyway, the long and short of it can be seen in the screenshot above, where despite a last minute rush on voting, I came 4th of four in my group, missing out on third spot by a whisker. Ah well, never mind, beaten by a better stile (bottom right), and there's always next year. I now have 12 months to find an impressive stile for the 2023 comp, although to be fair there are some stonking entries in this year's competition, and with (so far) 28 groups in round 1, there's plenty to choose from, from the traditional plank type, stones stepped or slabbed (like mine) to some really quirky ones

You can still vote for your favourite. Follow @LakeStiles on twitter or search for #StileCup2022

Twitter: @Statto1927 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/ 

Instagram: simon_hiscocks

How much Stile do you have?

Slab stile, St Lythan's Church, near Wenvoe, Vale of Glamorgan

If you use Twitter, it's very easy to be drawn into the depths of despair reading the widespread crap you find on that platform, or knowing that anything someone posts seems to draw one of two responses. Either people agree 100% with you, or people 100% disagree with you often in the most unpleasant way. Whatever the subject (and Brexit and Covid are the two prime examples) or whether blue is black and white is gold Twitter can be disheartening place to be sometimes. But then every now and then you come across some gems that you'd never have come across if you hadn't been trawling the bird. And what could be more gently entertaining than finding out about a competition to find everyone's* favourite stile?

(*everyone that voted that is!)

I first came across this because I'm an avid follower of Quintin Lake on Twitter. He's an architectural photographer who also loves walking and photographing his journeys. A couple of years ago  he walked and photographed the entire coastline of Britain on a humungous project he called The Perimeter. This was fascinating enough on its own, and he's still publishing his photo blog on this mammoth undertaking, but one by-product of this was a post he put on Twitter last year concerning the "Stile Cup" which (unsurprisingly) I'd never heard of before. That's a beauty of Twitter - you'll occasionally come across a post linking to people or things that you'd never have done so in the normal course of things, and it can open up a whole new world. And so it was here. There is a Twitter user named @LakeStiles who posts all sorts of photos of stiles and gates (bear with me, I'm a country boy at heart). This Twitter user also runs an annual "Stile Cup", where other Twitter users can send in images of interesting stiles, which are then voted on in groups of four by followers until an ultimate Stile Cup Winner is found.

Well, Quintin Lake submitted the photo below, which after a very hard fought contest, became the winner of the 2021 Stile Cup.

2021 Stile Cup Winner: Credit Quintin Lake

Having said above that it's "gently entertaining", I have to say the final run in of last year's competition (semi final and final in particular) got quite heated and tense as those who had submitted photos that made it that far used all manner of messaging to get people to vote for their photo albeit in a fun, (well I think it was fun) way.

This year I've submitted my own entry. The photo at the top of this post is a slab style stile (if you follow that) quite commonly found in these parts, this one adjacent to St Lythan's Church near Wenvoe in the Vale of Glamorgan. I don't expect to make it past round one of the 2022 Stile Cup which kicks of next week (search #StileCup2022 on Twitter), but at least I've made an effort to enter.

If you've got an interesting photo of a stile, you've got a couple more days left to enter. Just DM @LakeStiles with your entry.

Anyway, my overall point here is that there's some great and interesting stuff on Twitter if you look hard enough (accepting that "great" and "interesting" are very subjective!). We might clamber over standard wooden stiles on our walks about the place without giving it a second thought, but there are some fascinating alternatives out there if only you open your eyes. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it beats the hell out of trawling the mess, misinformation, trolling and detritus that is Covid or Brexit Twitter.

Twitter: @Statto1927 

Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/people/simon_hiscocks/ 

Instagram: simon_hiscocks