[r-t] Proportion of Surprise Methods

[Don Morrison]

2009/3/24 Richard Smith <richard at ex-parrot.com>:
> I'm not sure I agree. I quite like them as an idea, though I would
> prefer more useful definitions. In fact, I would argue the same with
> the obsolescent Plain terms like Court and College. In fact, I think
> there would have been a strong case for defining Court and Surprise
> in precisely the same manner: both would require places immediately
> next to the treble at every cross section. Thus, of the 30
> 'standard' plain minor methods, Hereward, D Court, D Oxford, London,
> Thelwall, Lytham, Frodsham, Windermere and Bala would be Court
> methods.

And would you have handled multiple hunt bells the same way they are
today? That is, required places adjacent to the every hunt bell at
every cross section?

Also, how would you have coped with the lack of a clear definition of
what a "cross section" is in a plain method? For example, what are the
cross sections of a little method where the hunt bell hunts to an odd
place? Or even a non-little method at an odd stage? What about a hunt
bell where the hunt bell never leads, but rather turns around in 2nds
from the back? What are the cross sections in Grandsire? While I
suppose for all common double hunt methods at odd stages you could
extrapolate from the underlying single hunt method one stage lower,
would about odd cases where you have multiple plain hunting hunt bells
that are not coursing (e.g. Mirror Bob)?


-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
BB: "Difficult, I find it difficult." GV: "Difficult? Then why did you write
it so?" BB: "I didn't write it to conduct myself, that's the answer."
    -- Benjamin Britten and Galina Vishnevskaya rehearsing the _War Requiem_