[r-t] Anything Goes vs Peals Mean Something

[Mark Davies]

Don writes,

> As I understand your opinion (1) is a peal, and (2) and (3) are not. Is
> that correct? Can you help me understand better why, as I would be far
> more impressed with (2) and (3) myself, and think them far more worthy of
> recognition of whatever sorts are available.

OK Don, first of all: the standard of striking and the difficulty of the
bells are completely orthogonal to the other arguments. Do not mix them in.
The fact that striking was brilliant and the bells were really hard to ring
doesn't make a peal of call changes a changeringing peal. Similarly, just
because a peal of Bob Doubles wasn't rung particularly brilliantly doesn't
necessarily make it not a peal. Peal ringers should strive for a high
standard of ringing, but once above a certain minimum standard we accept
ropey Bob Doubles, crap Cyclic Max, brilliant Bob Doubles and
perfectly-struck Cyclic Max as equals in their status as peals.

Returning to your question, (1) and (2) are clearly peals, the latter
because it is Major and Caters, two consecutive stages. If it had been rung
on 12 bells with E and T covering all the way then I would not think the
ringers of these two bells should claim a peal. Otherwise, I think you've
misunderstood my arguments if you think I wouldn't treat it as a peal.

But for (3) - well, I'm not so sure here. If you consider it a peal on the
14 stage only, it doesn't break my truth rules. OK, I don't like the idea of 
defining a Sextuples method where the bell in 7ths place is fixed forever, 
because that really is two different Minor methods rung next to each other; 
however I suppose there is nothing to prevent peals from including methods 
at very much lower stages as long as the bells are all changing and the 
truth test is taken to be "all rows at the higher stage". That wouldn't 
really contradict anything I've said up to now, would it? The peal would 
have to be a single-stage peal of "14" not of "Minor and 14", which seems 
entirely reasonable for what you're describing.

I would definitely not want to accept a peal where two sets of Minor are
rung contiguously and the Minor extents are only true within themselves, not
at the higher stage. To me, and I suspect most people, that would be a false
peal. Of course if the bells stayed completely separate there would be no
problem claiming it as two *different* peals of Minor, rung at the same time
in the same tower. Entirely fine by me.

MBD