And we have a winner…
| % | % | Votes | ||||
| 1 | National Shite Day | 58 | v | 42 | The Light at the End of the Tunnel | 813 |
See the (now closed) chat for the completed tie. Losers have taken their place in the updated table for the Baguette Dilemma round.
And here’s the full post-tournament discussion, analysis and pub chat…
Chris The Siteowner
Despite Light’s storming performance in qualification, for some reason when put up against Shite, I never thought it would win. And apart from a brief moment in the first few hours of voting, it was always well behind. Much more data analysis to follow.
27 December 2015
ARCHIE DREAM WALKER
Excellent result!!! The song that defines my life, and reflected in a sketch I drew seven years before the song was written. NSD is definitely a worthy winner!!!
I think that should there ever be a bank holiday on 1st August it should be known as National Shite Day, “my birthday” (and it actually is lol)!
27 December 2015
gipton teenager
The cup passes from ACP to NSD, does that tell us something about us biscuiteers in general? It’s arse-deep in water here in Leeds at the moment so perhaps it’s just a Local Shite Day.
27 December 2015
gipton teenager
(Archie was posting as I was typing the above) Definitely NOT the first of August: that’s Yorkshire Day.
27 December 2015
Dog on the pitch
While it’s not my favourite and therefore – by definition – not the best, credit to Shite for its stickability. It clung on, was hard to shift and just would not go away.
27 December 2015
Fourfoot
The right result. A song that sums up both the Biscuits’ unique oeuvre and the British malaise. My 11 year old daughter demands I play it every time I put the stereo on.
Better than Primark FM I guess.
27 December 2015
WARDEN HODGES
Well done Shite.
27 December 2015
Jan Akkerman
What’s this ‘nation’s favourite HMHB tune’ shite about? Were my votes discarded?
(I hope not – CtSO)
27 December 2015
TWo fat feet
A comprehensive victory against a song which was barely tested on its way to the final.
Light was not on my shortlist of potential winners at the start but consistently posted results far beyond expectations. In the end though, shite always shines through.
Looking forward to the albums tournament in 2017.
27 December 2015
TWo fat feet
Rankings will follow later btw, once domestic chaos subsides.
27 December 2015
BrumbiscUit
I can’t even try to better FTVPS’s comment, but NSD is the worthy winner and is a staggeringly insightful indictment of modern life.
Perhaps today, its rainbow might be allowed to shine in a multi-coloured splendour.
27 December 2015
Poolio
I seem to have voted the “wrong” way almost every time… Chris, can you provide a score / league of the most “successful” voters?
I’m sure I’ll be doing a Chelsea. I’m sure there’s a pun about the shite not being a hit on this fan… But too hungover/full to achieve a sufficient level of eloquence to deliver…
27 December 2015
two fat feet
*** non-stats junkies please move on to the next comment with my complete understanding ***
*** those still with me, throw a log on the fire ***
The rankings for the 32 finalists, based purely on the results of the 2015 finals, are as follows. Explanation of the rating system is below but it’s the same system as was used to rank the 2011 tournament, where it might have been better explained.
[1] National Shite Day 1000
[2] Everything’s A O R 818
[3] Joy Division Oven Gloves 726
[4] Light At the End Of The Tunnel 724
[5] Trad Arr Tune 695
[6] 24 Hour Garage People 546
[7] Trumpton Riots 524
[8] For What Is Chatteris 523 *
[9] Evening Of Swing 515
[10] Bad Wools 507
[11] Bastard Son of Dean Friedman 483 *
[12] Dukla Prague Away Kit 466
[13] A Country Practice 465
[14] Turned Up Clocked On Laid Off 447
[15] Asparagus Next Left 429
[16] Tending The Wrong Grave 391
[17] Bob Wilson – Anchorman 380
[18] When The Evening Sun Goes Down 364
[19] Irk The Purists 351
[20] Thy Damnation Slumbereth Not 337
[21] Them’s The Vagaries 336
[22] Descent Of The Stiperstones 311
[23] The Unfortunate Gwatkin 290
[24] Depressed Beyond Tablets 281
[25] Outbreak of Vitas Gerulaitis 268
[26] Fix It So She Dreams Of Me 243
[27] Running Order Squabble Fest 240
[28] Westward Ho! Massive Letdown 233
[29] Restless Legs 228
[30] Dead Men Don’t Need Season Tickets 224 *
[31] Lord Hereford’s Knob 215 *
[32] Adam Boyle Has Cast Lad Rock Aside 159
(ratings have been rounded up or down to the nearest integer; where two songs’ ratings have only been separated by decimal places, the two scores have been rounded in opposite directions for the sake of clarity, rather than scale all the scores up by a factor of ten)
If you compare the ratings of any two songs that met in the tournament, the ratio will be the same, near enough, as the score of the match. Thus, assuming people’s preferences remained unchanged throughout the tournament, it can be inferred what we could expect the score to have been between any two songs had they been drawn together. For example, if Evening of Swing (515) had been drawn against Them’s The Vagaries (336), we could expect Swing to win with a score of about 61%, based on the evidence of the complete results set.
The point is more to highlight those songs which could have done a lot better or worse with a different draw. It can be seen that although Trad Arr Tune went out in the first round, it ran the eventual winner close enough to suggest it could have gone a lot further with a kinder draw (TUCOLO was similarly ill-served in 2011). Bob Wilson, on the other hand, made the quarter-finals but fared so badly there, against an opponent which was well beaten in the semis by a song which was itself well beaten in the final, that its rating was driven down into the bottom half, lower than four first-round losers (likewise, Evening of Swing made the quarters in 2011 but was so badly exposed that it ranked below half the first-round losers).
Best performing song which was appearing in the finals for the first time was Bad Wools in 11th place, which hadn’t been released by the time of the last tournament, while the best performer out of those who had failed to qualify in 2011 was Asparagus next left in 15th.
You could fit the top 21 onto a single CD and, hurrah, Damnation would be on there so I don’t feel so bad now.
* the inevitable asterisk – The result of the quarter-final between AOR and Chatteris was subject to a steward’s enquiry, but the result stood. However Chris’s analysis, which determined that any underhand behaviour did not affect the outcome, did at least show that with the suspicious votes removed the result was a lot closer and more in line with expectations. The ratings given are based on the ‘official’ result, but if the revised result were applied instead (as would be my preference), the following improved ratings would result : Chatteris 734 (lifting it to third place), Dean Friedman 678 (now in seventh, and another high-performing first round loser), Dead Men 315 and Lord Hereford’s Knob 302, enough to lift each of those another seven or eight places.
27 December 2015
Beltane beard
The right result for me. Surprised to see Light won the BD round though; I had rather underestimated its popularity.
27 December 2015
Dickhead in quicksand
Kurt Sanderling must have played a blinder considering he’s been dead for four years.
27 December 2015
Paul
I just want there to be 24,116 comments on this site.
27 December 2015
As told to A. Boyle
Thanks for a brilliantly organised and thoroughly engaging competition. Always pleased to see glitter sprinkled on Shite.
28 December 2015
The full buscuit
Well done, Chris. Superbly organised and a thoroughly entertaining few months.
28 December 2015
Dickhead in quicksand
@A. Boyle – you wouldn’t have said that if you’d seen the Christmas-inspired state of the away dressing room toilets before the kick off in the final.
28 December 2015
Chris The Siteowner
Fantastic analysis by TFF. Interesting that FWIC would have been rated as high as third without the Quarter-Final shenanigans; I’m going to guess that might make it the strongest song across the two tournaments?
Also worth investigating might be the relative performance of each album in the qualifying round; whether songs which were new-ish in 2011 did better this time, now that they’ve become more familiar; and which songs outperformed their qualifying round expectations when they got into the knockout stages. I thought it was fascinating that despite TLATEOTT being so strong there, once it was paired with NSD, it seemed to me to be the natural underdog.
28 December 2015
Hazelsound
Shite was my winner from the outset, so this result has made my Christmas. The homeless dogs are howling. Thanks for a fantastically entertaining tournament Chris. I’m also surprised to see Light at top of the BD round, but that all seems part of a different competition now. Shite is my anthem for 2016 and it’s good to know that a few others out there will be taking it with them too.
28 December 2015
Hazelsound
Meant to say, love the stats TFF – thank you.
28 December 2015
Two fat feet
It’s (something of) a pleasure.
Re the relevance of NSD, it occurred to me that it could be alternatively (or sub-) titled First World Problems. But it wouldn’t be as bluntly funny.
28 December 2015
bobby svarc
Oh dear, this is not good news.
28 December 2015
THIS LEADEN PAUL
Celebratory party in the boot aisle at Millets.
28 December 2015
kregg kreggly
Oh Shazbat !
I was out so I couldn’t cast my vote.
28 December 2015
Chris The Siteowner
For any statto who’s are waiting, I’m just trying to retrieve the data from Micropoll for the round of 32 (their system seems to be stuck), after which I’ll publish the complete anonymised data for the knockout rounds. I’ve already got it for the latter stages, for which we changed to using Polldaddy. There won’t be any more data on the Baguette Dilemma round, as I can’t understand my own spreadsheets now, although I may be able to show which of the anonymised voters in the knockout rounds also voted in the BD.
28 December 2015
Toastkid
I’ll add my applause for CTSO: a fantastic tournament Chris, well done and thanks! A worthy winner at the close, much great discussion and some inspired format choices. Hurrah!
28 December 2015
mr Ed
Yes, thanks to CtSO. Congratulations to FWIC for another podium place (Duckworth-Lewis adjusted).
Hoping that the Cup runs again (presumably every 4 years, so that it never clashes with the Olympics), I have a suggestion for the next format in response to the Chatteris Affair: FWIC should get a wild card into the knockouts, *and* be waved through all knockout rounds until the semi-finals. It wouldn’t be fair for its opponent to be knocked out, so its opponent is waved through as well; each knockout round consists of (2+2^n) contenders. In this way, we can vote without worrying, and I hope it irks the self-declared purists.
29 December 2015
Bananayogi
Great tournament and the right result in the final IMO – although I thought long and hard about my vote. If the next running of the Cup is in four years, hopefully we will have a whole new batch of songs in contention!
Thanks for running it, Chris.
29 December 2015
Dagenham dave
I’ve just read about the FWIC scandal. Good grief is nothing sacred. I’m genuinely shocked.
31 December 2015
gipton teenager
Thanks for several weeks of joyous nonsense Chris (isn’t that what life’s really all about?). Thanks also to everyone who has put in a lot of hard work on the cup figures, I’m afraid I do skip over all the statistical analyses though. Happy New Year to all. (Except the gets who tried to fix the tourney.)
1 January 2016
Kendo nagasaki
I took the liberty of using the results from the baguette dilemma round to give us an idea of what is the very best HMHB album/EP . Unfortunately as a big fan of Some Call it Godcore it does not make for great reading but here it is.
The list of albums/EPs along with their average song placing (to 2 decimal places)
1 AB 58.43
2 CLSC 58.62
3 90BC 60.33
4 CSI:A 68.46
5 M,T&D 87.40
6 UFO 91.33
7 VTTBOTR 94.93
8 BITDHSS 96.76
9 BAITDHSS 98.45
10 TOB 101.38
11 SHB 102.00
12 TLP 117.64
13 ER 122.50
14 FLWSTW 122.69
15 SCIG 140.75
3 January 2016
Chris The Siteowner
Interesting. We could also do the median position, I guess:
1 Cammell Laird Social Club (2002) – 50.0
2 Achtung Bono (2005) – 53.0
3 CSI: Ambleside (2008) – 59.0
4 90 Bisodol (Crimond) (2011) – 61.0
5 Urge For Offal (2014) – 80.0
6 Back Again in the DHSS (1987) – 91.0
7 McIntyre, Treadmore and Davitt (1991) – 96.0
8 Trouble Over Bridgwater (2000) – 96.5
9 Saucy Haulage Ballads (2003) – 97.0
10 Voyage To The Bottom Of The Road (1997) – 103.5
11 This Leaden Pall (1993) – 111.0
12 Back In The DHSS (1985) – 120.0
13 Four Lads Who Shook The Wirral (1998) – 143.0
14 Editor’s Recommendation (2001) – 150.0
15 Some Call It Godcore (1995) – 153.5
In this case, the most recent full-length albums take the first five places.
4 January 2016
EXXO
One of the biggest questions we’ll never know the answer to is how many voters are not familiar with what percentage of the songs. I seem to recall we even had one fairly frequent contributor who confessed he didn’t really know which song ‘AOR’ was, and therefore was voting for its opponent in the semi.
(this is apart from the associated question, which we have already touched upon more than once, of how many voters are not familiar with the titles of those songs which don’t have ‘chorus titles’).
Hypothetical question of course, but were the songs on ‘Saucy Haulage Ballads’ to be made available again in some way, say on a new album of rarities or something, how much higher would they rate? 5 total barnstormers on there, lyrically and musically.
4 January 2016
peter mcornithologist
Also Exxo, I wonder how many have had the pleasure of hearing Mars Ultras?
4 January 2016
EXXO
And alas one wonders how many fewer have the pleasure of performing it every now and then when they get the drill out, given the legendarily low correlation between HMHB knowledge and DIY inclinations.
4 January 2016
Chris The Siteowner
Hypothetical, of course, Exxo. *winks*
4 January 2016
TOASTKID
Of course, one data point can never prove anything, but HMHB have been high in my thoughts this festive period, what with the truly triumphant contest and all, and i fitted a downstairs toilet AND basin all by myself, by far the most advanced DIY i’ve ever done.
5 January 2016
mate of the bloke
Whilst i’ll leave the statto’s to enjoy the detail i think a big hand needs to go to all those that voted, even if your choice didn’t win through. It’s been a bit of fun to liven up the current world situation.
p.s Toastkid… Sorry i don’t have a medal for you
9 January 2016
Dave morgan
Really quite surprised at the enduring love for ‘Shite Day’. I mean, from a personal perspective it’s okay but I wouldn’t have in my top 50 of HMHB songs. Felt the same way about ACP before…perhaps I’m just not turned on by the long riff-heavy talky tracks.
But picking a favourite HMHB song is hard anyway. I’d struggle to decide between ‘Lark Descending’ and ‘Numanoid Hanglide’
19 January 2016
The harbinger of nothing
Cup Year!
1 January 2019
The harbinger of nothing
(Proper one)
1 January 2019