I sometimes enjoy a cryptic crossword, but yesterday we were filling in the gaps in the grid of Remus. This has been our surprise royal project for a while, with the usual interruptions and diversions. Yesterday's session was quite satisfying, considering that we have had a break of several weeks. We just about managed a plain course at the first attempt, then spent some time practising difficult sections. Finally we rang a much better course.

We think we're ready to go for a quarter next time we meet, which will be in two weeks' time. I wrote a bit about compositions of Remus a couple of years ago. Although we generally ring 4th place bobs in anticipation of ringing spliced, I think the easiest composition of Remus is to ring 8th place calls and swap 2, 5, 6 around with singles at I (In, that is tenor becoming 2nd place bell) and V (5ths, that is tenor becoming 5th place bell).

1440 Remus Surprise Royal

I  V  23456
-----------
   s  63452
s  s  23465
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2 part.

This is the same idea that we often ring for Cambridge, transposed for 8th place calls. The reason for starting with sV rather than calling the first course sI sV is to include the coursing order 63542 which generates 2345 roll-ups.

The I and V calling positions are at the 2nd and 3rd leads of the course, so this composition finishes with 6 leads of the plain course. There is an option of ringing a 2nd place lead end at the 5th lead of that course, to come round at 1280. We occasionally use the corresponding trick to get 1280 of Cambridge Royal, but somehow I always feel that it's slightly cheating. Irrational, I know. I expect we will ring the full four courses of Remus, but I will be kicking myself if we fire out in the final four leads.