This week we rang another quarter of Turramurra, so that Tina could ring it and Angela could ring inside. Jonathan called it again, but with a different composition. It went well, and the next day we rang a course of it in the tower.

June's method is Jovium, so we had a quick look at it and practised a plain course, in preparation for ringing a quarter tomorrow.

For 12-bell ringers, this is Phobos but without the wrong-place frontwork (there isn't room for it) and with a 2nd place lead end. It's a method of two halves. The backwork has the characteristic Phobos pattern of pairs of fishtails, which are seen here in 2nd, 3rd, 7th and 8th place bells. The frontwork is right-place, treble-bob based with some double dodges. A useful mnemonic seems to be moving from a dodge to a dodge and from a place to a place, which also covers the transition from the back to the 3-4 work in 7th place bell; also note that 3rds and 4ths are made when the treble is in 5-6. We managed to ring it at the second attempt, albeit rather cautiously. The fishtails take a little getting used to, as the ones at the beginning and end of the lead are at the opposite stroke from the ones in London.

According to my computer search, the quarter peal composition of up to 1344 with bobs only and tenors together, with the most 4-bell runs (front or back), is this one, credited to Best1280 (I'm not sure whose program that is) in CompLib:

1312 Jovium Surprise Major
Comp. Best1280

B W M H  23456
--------------
2     -  35642
  -   -  64352
-     -  64523
    - -  35426
  -   3  23456
--------------
98 4-bell runs (47f, 51b)

With split tenors, a nice one is the same composition that we rang for Turramurra, but it produces far more runs for Jovium (106 instead of 83).

1344 Jovium Surprise Major
Comp. Elf

I W H  2345678
--------------
- -   (3462785)
-   2  2348765
--------------
2 part.
106 4-bell runs (50f, 56b)

Note that the calling positions refer to the position of the 5th, which becomes 8th place bell at the half-way point.

I wondered whether it would be possible to use half lead bobs to get the back bells into the 8765 position within a single course, then call three homes. It is possible, with half lead bobs in the third and fifth leads, but it only adds one extra run, so the complication doesn't seem worthwhile.

I also looked into 7-part compositions. The simplest is sT sH, bringing up 13456782 as the part end, but it only has 74 runs, which is nowhere near as good as the two-part above.