[r-t] Anything Goes vs Peals Mean Something

[Richard Smith]

Mark Davies wrote:

> RAS writes, in response to me,
>
>> The only difference is that with your definition, if you want to pick out
>> isolated rows you have to come up with a contrived description in term of
>> methods, whereas with Don's / Iain's you don't have to maintain this
>> fiction.
>
> In theory, I suppose. But it's not really a fiction, is it: in theory people
> can ring a peal of Cambridge using Original and lots of calls. In practice
> no-one does. The intention - the spirit - of my idea is clear, and that's
> what matters I think. Who cares if someone wants to exploit a loophole?

There's a big difference.  By ringing Cambridge and calling 
it Original, you are exploiting the loophole simply because 
it's there: there's no need to exploit the loophole. 
That's very different from being forced to use a silly 
description simply in order to get it accepted.

> > In practice, unless you've carefully constructed the triples to the
> > contrary, the covering bell to the minor won't be at the back in all the
> > missing rows of triples
>
> Err, no... could be any covering bell in the Minor, couldn't it. You're not
> always going to start the Minor method from a Triples row with the 7th at
> home. (The leads or courses of Minor can be split up throughout the peal).

But you said there was just one partial extent of minor. 
Yes, if you have lots of them, it's possible.  Or if you 
change cover in the minor sufficient times to get all of the 
missing rows, *and* you carely construct the partial extent 
of minor such that all of the missing rows of triples are 
mopped up in a single partial extent of minor, then yes, 
it's possible.  But it still sounds like something that 
needs carefully constructed touches to exploit: certainly 
not the sort of thing that might happen accidentally.

> > MBD (and, I think, GACJ, but less so) seems to think it is more important
> > to excluded the worthless things even at the expense of excluding other
> > obscure but interesting things.
>
> No, not at all. I think that we should set minimum standards for peal
> ringing, that are high, but allow limitless innovation. Has anyone come up
> with anything "obscure but interesting" that is outside of my standards? I
> don't think so - Don has tried quite hard but I think has failed - I was
> happy with all of his crazy peal examples.

A mixture of extents of minimus, doubles and minor, not run 
variable cover.  You don't allow that, and Don does.

> If I was the Central Council (all of
> it) and something like this came up I'd probably vote to accept it as a
> peal, but not bother changing the rules to accommodate it. Nothing like it
> would probably ever be rung again.

Out of interest, does anyone know when this last happened? 
I can think of plenty of examples of new, innovative things 
being rung that the CC has decided *not* to accept (the 
original variable cover cinques is a good example), but when 
did they last accept something that is against the 
decisions?  Have they ever?

I sometimes wonder whether, if a true 80,640 of major is 
rung, the CC will reject it on the basis that it doesn't 
conform to the decisions.

RAS