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

Stile Cup 2023. Crashed and burned

Sad reading - 3rd of 3 - by a stretch

Well, my #StileCup2023 competition lasted less than 24 hours as I was well beaten into 3rd place in a 3 horse race in round 1 as you can see from the photo at the top of this post.

I'm gutted to have succumbed in round 1 for the second year running as I though I had a decent chance of at least progressing with this year's entry, and even the organiser had the grace to say (after voting closed) that they thought it was worthy of progressing.

But that's the way the cookie crumbles. Interestingly there were only just over 200 votes cast in this group, so the fact that the group winner has over 10k followers compared to my just over 400 clearly has no bearing.

Looking at the group winners, it's hard to see any discernible pattern for those that progress further in the competition. As I said previously, a decent dog or distant landscape clearly helps, rather than a good stile, with some pretty ordinary ones (in my view) making the cut. However, I'm not bitter (much), and I've now got plenty of time to start searching for next year's entry on my travels whilst voting for what I think is the best stile in the remainder of this year's comp.

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