all British tolkienites HERE

[The Saucepan Man]

Does anyone realistically think that Star Wars is the best movie ever made?

No, but your analogy doesn't work, as the purpose of this poll is not to find the "best" book ever written (an impossible task, as I said earlier), but Britain's favourite book at this point in time.

Whilst it may be some peoples favourite movie, favourite is not necessarily best.

Precisely. It would not suprise me at all to find that Star Wars (the original, that is) was one of this nation's favourite films.

Incidentally, I do think that there is, or can be, a link between popularity and quality (as your use of the word "necessarily" suggests). Quality tends to elicit popularity, but it doesn't always follow and there are many other factors involved.

To suggest that Birdsong would have a “hard core” of fans who would vote for each multiple times in the same way as LOTR is not realistic.

Of course I am not suggesting that there are websites devoted to Birdsong where fans implore each other to vote for it as many times as possible. But I am sure that a good number of those who regard it as their favourite book have voted for it more than once, and are perhaps doing so on a weekly basis, for that is what the BBC's rules allow, and that is what the BBC keeps telling us we can do. The same applies to any other book in the top 21.

As for mass multiple voting, I do think that you are being unduly harsh about LotR fans. First I would point out that those who are voting so many times are doing so because they love the book so much (which is hardly a terrible motive) and there really are a lot worse ways that they could be "cheating" (as you put it) in life. But, in any event, I really do not believe that there is a significant amount of this going on, certainly not significant enough to affect the result.

I agree that, if there were, then the outcome of the poll would have little meaning. But I really think that the numbers involved here (in relative terms) are insufficient to make any significant impact on the result. Accordingly, I still think that we can regard whatever book tops the poll as Britain's favourite book.