On Sunday we had a surprise minor session with Alison, who came over from Edinburgh. She had previously rung a quarter of Cambridge on the trebles, and wanted to practise the other pairs. After ringing courses on 5-6 and then 3-4, we kept her on 3-4 and worked our way through Primrose (Cambridge with plain hunting at the lead end), Ipswich (Cambridge with plain hunting at the half lead) and Norfolk (Cambridge with plain hunting at the lead end and at the half lead).

The good thing about ringing all of these methods is that as well as thinking about how the place bells join up at the lead end and at the half lead, you are constantly practising the work of half a lead of Cambridge. By the end of the session we had ironed out all the wrinkles and trips in the basic work.

After ringing those four methods, we rang a course of Westminster and finished with a nice 720 of Cambridge.

Another direction to go in would have been spliced. The classic composition is this one:

720 Spliced Surprise Minor (4m)

F  H          23456
-------------------
-     C.NIIN  63245
-  -  N.CPPC. 42356
-------------------
3 part.

Afterwards I remembered King Edward and Queen Mary. These are Cambridge and Primrose, respectively, with 3rds place instead of 5ths place at the half lead. This is like ringing a half lead bob and produces an irregular (i.e. non Plain Bob) lead end. That means it's possible to ring a 720 without any bobs, for example like this:

720 Spliced Surprise Minor (6m)

       23456
------------
CCIQP  25346
NNQKI  42356
------------
3 part.

I seem to have mislaid my copy of the Spliced Minor Collection, so I had to use my composition searching program to find the no-call extent above. There are many others, for example these interesting 5-parts:

720 Spliced Surprise Minor (4m)

        23456
-------------
KICCIQ  35264
-------------
5 part.

720 Spliced Surprise Minor (4m)

        23456
-------------
KQPNNP  45623
-------------
5 part.

Something to try another time.