[r-t] Anything Goes vs Peals Mean Something

[Iain Anderson]

Mark Davies wrote:

> Some things are essential to the definition of a peal, some 
> aren't. Peals
> are:
> 
> 1. True.
> 2. Of a minimum length.
> 3. Composed of changeringing methods.
> 4. Of a reasonable quality of performance.
> 
> No-one is arguing over that, are they? What we're discussing 
> is questions of degree in all four.
> 
> My point is if you weaken these four standards much beyond 
> what we have now, you devalue the meaning of "peal".

I think people are arguing over that, particularly (1) and (3).  We'd love
the definition of "true" to be, well, true or false, but it is proving very
difficult to get a consensus on what exactly truth is.

I also think you are attaching too much significance to the meaning of
peals.  They don't have any meaning except to the band that rang them.  I
caught myself falling into the meaning trap earlier when you suggested
bobs-only Grandsire Triples by ringing just a little more than an extent.
My initial reaction was that you can't allow that because it would devalue
the bobs-only peal that I rang.  Fortunately, I snapped out of that
nonsense.  Ringing 5096 triples for the sake of the extra music sounds like
an excellent idea.  There's still part of me that thinks it wouldn't be as
good or pure or of the same value as the 10080, but that's just a natural
part of being human which we call arrogance and needs to be given a good
slapping every once in a while.