[r-t] Proportion of Surprise Methods

[Don Morrison]

2009/3/24 Richard Smith <richard at ex-parrot.com>:
> Is that useful? I would put London and Bristol firmly in the
> interestly-wrong-place category, though neither have any asymmetric
> sections. Perhaps it's useful for distinguishing 'hard' wrong-place
> methods from 'easy' ones

Havant has an asymmetrical section. I reckon it's a lot easier,
though, than London or Bristol, which don't.

> but even then, what makes the harder wrong place methods hard is
> more the frequent juxtaposition of asymmetric wrong-place sections
> and right-place sections, rather than just the presence of
> assymetric wrong-place sections.

Consider this unnamed Derwent variation

  x56x4x56.2.36x234x5x34.2.7   le 2 [f]    fch DEa

A half lead consists of alternating asymmetic wrong-place sections
with right-place sections. While it would probably be challenging to
ring a whole peal of it well, I think that is more a result of tedium
than of intrinsic difficulty. I certainly think it is in many ways
easier than London or Bristol. Indeed, if you factor out familiarity,
easier even than Cambridge or Yorkshire.

I'm not sure, but I suspect difficulty has more to do with the mix of
wrong and right hunting than with just the mix of wrong and right
places. Though even that doesn't capture interesting things like
turning around in unexpected places, such as 4ths from the back, or
strange, skewed pointy bits like you get in Belfast and Orion. And
things not even aparent form the line, such as unusual music or
passing bells in unexpected places, can add to difficulty in practice.


-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their
sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."
                                                         -- Sam Ewig