Culture Cup rd 3 (Books)

Round 2 of the Culture Cup 2.0 finally comes to an end, and what a controversial round it turned out to be.  There were accusations of vote rigging (by me, about Adam.  I still think he has cheated), arguments, swearing and threats of physical violence.  But, that’s what great art does.  It inspires opinions, it creates extremes of emotion, it forces people to look into their souls.  Round 2 was great art.  Great art happening in front of our eyes, people.  There were one or two questions about the validity of some picks and, as usual, some invective spewed my way.  But I can handle it.  That’s what great leaders do, provide inspiration in the face of adversity.  It’s water of a ducks back to me.  Or jizz off Sean’s chin if you need a better metaphor.

So who were the movers and shakers in round 2?  Well, the biggest winners were Hero and Harrier who both scored 10 points with Madge and Dusty.  I voted for Madge so I can’t say I’m too disappointed with those choices.  Son Of A Preacher Man is a great song as well so no complaints from me.  Hero and Hammer are at the top of the table with Paul, Treb “Tik Tok” Trebs and 'fathead' Adam breathing down their necks.  That f*cking lunatic Ziggler somehow managed to lobby enough people to vote for his choon and finds himself in second place for round 2 with 8 points.  Adam with Hit Me Baby One More Time somehow claims the last podium position in round 2 with a truly awful song. I’d like to hit all the people that voted for it one more time with a massive claw hammer.  Although that would just involve hitting Adam over his stupid, fat head numerous times as he clearly cheated and rigged the votes.  Jeff and superfly continue their titanic “who is the least sh*t out of two sh*t posters” battle with Jeff’s solitary vote this round enabling him to snuggle up to his great rival on 2 points each in the table.

A few posters continue to languish with no points, with Sean “I lie more than Jay from the Inbetweeners” Michaels, Galted “Massively Gay Way” Mears and Julius “I’m old so I moan.  Deal with it” Marx all yet to break their 2.0 virginity.  Stella has become a bit of an enigma.  He joined late, and now won’t answer my PM’s.  This has forced me to choose for him in round 3.  Hopefully my choice will lift him from the foot of the table.

So the updated table looks like this:

1) Hero 16 pts
2) Harrier 14 pts
3) Paul 12 pts
4) Trebs 10 pts
5) Adam 10 pts
6) Ziggler 9 pts
7) SerialDAVE 7 pts
8) C&R 6 pts
9) Azzy 6 pts
10) weeman 5 pts
11) Nakatomi 4 pts
12) Beadle 4 pts
13) Union Cane 3 pts
14) Shah-abu bakr 3 pts
15) The Boss 3 pts
16) superfly 2 pts
17) Jeff 2 pts
18) Grumpy G*lfer 2 pts
19) Dagless 1 pt
20) Michaels 0 pts
21) Jules 0 pts
22) Ray Mears 0 pts
23) Stella 0 pts

Round 3 takes us to books and question was this:  WHAT IS THE BEST PIECE OF FICTION WRITTEN BY A EUROPEAN?

Please remember, THIS IS OPEN FOR ANYONE ON 606v2 TO VOTE

Thanks.

Fist

Two of my choices on there and a pretty good list actually

David Gemmell FTW

Rick the Brick Dagless, Did you put dear old Druss up there?

Picked Homer's Illiad. Haven't read it in a while. But its a cracking poem, if you can get past the iffy beginning.

Haven't read plenty on there. Plenty on I have read but did not enjoy, but genuinely loved Dracula so have gone with that.

Is it too late to change my film nomination?

'Sherlock Homes' is a character not a book.

JuliusHMarx wrote:'Sherlock Homes' is a character not a book.

Who is Sherlock Homes anyway?

There's quite a few on there I haven't read, but on the basis that one of them must be very good I voted for one of them at random.

The Harry Potter series being defined as one piece of fiction is rather loose.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:The Harry Potter series being defined as one piece of fiction is rather loose.

You're right. Rather loose indeed.

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:The Harry Potter series being defined as one piece of fiction is rather loose.

It's almost as if Tino was too busy on the customer services and collections desk to do this properly.

I shan't be voting for it, nor the book "Sherlock Holmes", and I shall also ignore His Dark Materials. Piece of fiction. I might as well have nominated The Sun.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:The Harry Potter series being defined as one piece of fiction is rather loose.

It's almost as if Tino was too busy on the customer services and collections desk to do this properly.

I didn't think Netto had one, I assumed they just had people scribble complaints on the wall in blood.

I don't wish to join in the dissension here, but how the hell does the Harry Potter series count as a 'piece' of fiction? Can I change my nomination to the Complete Works of Shakespeare?

Mind the windows Tino. wrote:

JuliusHMarx wrote:'Sherlock Homes' is a character not a book.

Who is Sherlock Homes anyway?

Private Detective. Goes round solving mysteries with his brothers Beazer and Barratt.

How does any of the Harry Potter books qualify as a piece of fiction? Apparently they're all companions to the documentaries that were on at the cinema..."Paul Daniels - The Early Years"

PS...ONE VOTE FOR ME (not my own vote either - get in, ya Tino has a tiny penis!)

Vote cancelling should be cancelled, someone's already changed their David Gemmell vote.

jbeadlesbigrighthand wrote:I don't wish to join in the dissension here, but how the hell does the Harry Potter series count as a 'piece' of fiction? Can I change my nomination to the Complete Works of Shakespeare?

Call 0333 014 3098 to register a complaint.

JuliusHMarx wrote:

jbeadlesbigrighthand wrote:I don't wish to join in the dissension here, but how the hell does the Harry Potter series count as a 'piece' of fiction? Can I change my nomination to the Complete Works of Shakespeare?

Call 0333 014 3098 to register a complaint.

I just rang...it sounds like a bloke w*nking himself off into a pair of Hi-tecs whilst being berated by an angry Russian woman.....worth £15 of anyone's money

I voted for The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole, one of the few books that l*terally made me l*l.

No-one's voted for my choice yet.  This makes me think "b0ll0cks!"

Who put David Gemmell up there, Gemmell is the writer George Macdonald Fraser would be if Fraser knew nothing about history, had a teenage wrestling fans obsession with ridiculously over the top violence and forgot how to write.

He's not all bad Rowley. True the people and races, nationalities are clear rip offs of historical figures/Myths/Legends and he's kinda obvious with his christian beliefs permeating though certain novels. But its definitely readable. Legend is the first book and I enjoyed it. Good read but not close to the greatest.

I voted for Sherlock Holmes despite the fact (as previously mentioned) there isn't a book called "Sherlock Holmes". I've also read all of the Holmes books and despite a somewhat alarming level of repressed homosexuality at times, they're still remarkable books. A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four etc etc etc...all tremendous stuff and infinitely better than the abortion I chose...my excuse being A/ I can't read and B/ I was full of flu when I made my selection and didn't want any more angry expletive ridden PM's from Tina

I'm not expecting any votes this round, had to try and make it less obvious that i'd thus far been going out of my way to win.

To be really really pedantic I have to question whether the Iliad is fiction, i'd always considered it an exaggerated piece of non-fiction.

Wait, The Iliad counts as a European author. Are you sure of Homer's birthplace?

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Wait, The Iliad counts as a European author. Are you sure of Homer's birthplace?

Just outside Colne, I believe

Read quite a few of the books on that list and of those, genuinely think my pick is the best. Will be hard not to pick it, but I won't because I respect the integrity of this cup and the work that Tina is trying but failing miserably to do here.

I think I've probably just voted for Jeff's pick. Cockwombles.

I thought Tina was supposed to be asking for nominations for the next round when posting the results of the previous round? Cockwomble.

superflyweight wrote:Read quite a few of the books on that list and of those, genuinely think my pick is the best.  Will be hard not to pick it, but I won't because I respect the integrity of this cup and the work that Tina is trying but failing miserably to do here.

You've thrown me there super. I hadn't realised the cup had integrity. I now feel terribly guilty about both my nomination and my vote.

Rowley wrote:Haven't read plenty on there. Plenty on I have read but did not enjoy, but genuinely loved Dracula so have gone with that.

Love you, Jeff. That convinced me against voting for my own for a change.

superflyweight wrote:I think I've probably just voted for Jeff's pick.  Cockwombles.  

 

You haven't.

Went for Candide. Though Homer and Huxley are up there.

Missing some great current and past authors there, with some weaker options in.

The Shakespeare and Pratchett made me a bit sad as they are great authors but I don't think any of those works selected in this list do them justice :/

To be honest, 50% of other Pratchett books might have won my vote on this round, I just don't think tCoM is his best stuff

Night Watch is his best, though TCOM is probably the most well known.

Hero wrote:Night Watch is his best, though TCOM is probably the most well known.

I thoroughly agree

I'd go so far as to call tCoM his worst Discworld book.

Ulysses is also the only book I've never been able to make myself finish

ChequeredJersey wrote:

Hero wrote:Night Watch is his best, though TCOM is probably the most well known.

I thoroughly agree

I'd go so far as to call tCoM his worst Discworld book.

Though being as 'Harry Potter' series is counted as one then it should be all the Discworlds combined.

Hero wrote:

ChequeredJersey wrote:

Hero wrote:Night Watch is his best, though TCOM is probably the most well known.

I thoroughly agree

I'd go so far as to call tCoM his worst Discworld book.

Though being as 'Harry Potter' series is counted as one then it should be all the Discworlds combined.

If that is actually the case I'll change my vote. Reread Reaper Man when STP passed away. He was utterly brilliant

ChequeredJersey wrote:Went for Candide.

Damn you.

kingraf wrote:Picked Homer's Illiad. Haven't read it in a while. But its a cracking poem, if you can get past the iffy beginning.

In the original(ish) Greek, of course?

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Wait, The Iliad counts as a European author. Are you sure of Homer's birthplace?

Nobody is but it's relatively likely to be Greece, really

Would have liked to see Virgil or Ovid on there

ChequeredJersey wrote:

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Wait, The Iliad counts as a European author. Are you sure of Homer's birthplace?

Nobody is but it's relatively likely to be Greece, really

Would have liked to see Virgil or Ovid on there

Ancient Greece? What about a city that doesn't exist and may never have existed. Was Homer even the author? Or are we working with legend here?

Don't know what the fuss about Homer is.  Read about a third of the Odyssey (in English) and found it tedious.  Not unreadable but don't quite understand why it's regarded with the favour it is.  Gave up when I'd read about the rose-red fingers of dawn once too often.

While on the subject I read Ulysses a couple of years back and can't understand why it tops so many best book ever lists.  Joyce is clearly a superb writer but is too busy smugly showing off his talent to bother writing anything meaningful.  Can pick out any passage in the text and enjoy them but was decidedly underwhelmed by it in its entirety.

The author of the Iliad is known as Homer, ergo in a self-defining circle, Homer was the author of the Iliad

Don't think that the book was thought to have been written in Troy. Which was likely a real city with ruins matching it found in Tunisia, I think, with several rebuilds due to earthquakes

Didn't see the BFG there, another cracking read.

ChequeredJersey wrote:

Dolphin Ziggler wrote:Wait, The Iliad counts as a European author. Are you sure of Homer's birthplace?

Nobody is but it's relatively likely to be Greece, really

Would have liked to see Virgil or Ovid on there

Or any of the Tracy brothers, to be honest.

wasn't Hitchikers Guide a Radio play turned into a book?

ChequeredJersey wrote:

kingraf wrote:Picked Homer's Illiad. Haven't read it in a while. But its a cracking poem, if you can get past the iffy beginning.

In the original(ish) Greek, of course?

Hah! Can't read a lick of Greek.