[r-t] Blocks to be renamed as methods

[Philip Earis]

Alan:
> I'm pretty sure that Cross Differential was only named to highlight the
> edge cases permitted by the rules at the time. Does anyone on here know
> more of the background? In that instance it seems the method's committee
> stuck to the rules as written and allowed it (although I suspect they may
> rather not have done).

I rang in the inaugural peal of Cross Differential.

We'd been ringing some Dixon's Minor in hand...the CC in their wisdom told
us this was unacceptable...we'd seemingly have to describe the extent of
Dixon's not as an elegant 720 rule-based construction, but instead as
spliced of around a dozen or so methods, a motley collection of "hybrids",
"differential hunters" etc.  So we sent up one peal in this way, mostly to
highlight the absurdity, and named the methods after Oxford Colleges,
naturally.

Given the CC were so keen on differentials, soon after we thought they'd
appreciate a performance of the shortest possible method, one which
exhibits a dazzling range of symmetries and gives much musical
possibility.  Hence Cross Differential was born.  Mr T scratchd his head
hard and came up with an ingenious composition with a call (either 18, 12
or 14) every courseend (ie every backstroke).  He called them all
throughout the peal - the most calls ever made. The composition has some
similarity to plain bob major...