The next method of the month is Ytterbium. Let's have a look at it now, although I don't think we'll be able to ring it until a bit later in August.
It's a D lead end, i.e. "alternate Cambridge" place bell order. We've had this place bell order a few...
This month's method is Kenninghall, and we rang a quarter of it on Monday - once again, the first band to put a performance of the monthly method into the list on BellBoard. It was a new venue, but it's only temporary - there's some building work going on at...
After our peals of Lessness and Cornwall, the next thing we're going to try with Julia and Nick is Turramurra. It isn't a Pickled Egg method, although I think it featured in the initial discussions about which methods to include; maybe it was even in the "also try" list...
On Monday we had another go at Cornwall with Julia and Nick, and succeeded with a good peal. I decided that ringing the tenors would give us a better chance, so we changed the band around a little. I found that it still takes some concentration to keep the treble bob...
Last Monday we rang a quarter of February's method, Double Dublin. I enjoyed it much more than I expected to - my memory of ringing Double Dublin as part of 23-spliced was that it can be a bit trippy, because of having to remember to do every variation with respect...
We've been doing some practice towards a Spliced Surprise Major project, and at the moment this involves trying to ring a quarter of Preston, Ipswich and Dunster. I agree that this is a strange combination of methods, but all will be revealed eventually. Preston is familiar as one of the...
We've just come back from a short visit to Penrith, where we rang a peal of Cambridge, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Rutland with Julia Cater and Nick Tithecott. That makes six peals from six attempts for me, and five out of five for Tina - surely the longest winning streak in...
Yesterday we rang a peal of the Nottingham Eight: London, Bristol, Cambridge, Superlative, Glasgow, Cornwall, Lessness and Cassiobury. I called Graham John's one-part all-the-work composition, and it felt like a real achievement to succeed at the first attempt without it turning into a big project. Most of the ringing...
I've always liked Chesterfield, and I think it's a good candidate for including in the Surprise Major repertoire as an introduction to wrong-place methods. I encountered it as part of Crosland's spliced series. Actually it occurs in two series by Richard Crosland: a series from 4 to 12 methods, which I rang...
Instead of waiting to comment on each instalment of Simon Linford's analysis of Surprise Major methods as candidates for a new standard repertoire, I'm going to get ahead by discussing some candidates of my own - from a handbell perspective, of course.
One way to come up with candidate methods...