Thinking allowed

Y Cymun Bendigaid

A pack­age con­tain­ing a new book landed through my let­ter box a couple of days ago. It was a copy of the newly-author­ized ver­sion of the Euchar­ist of the Church in Wales, pub­lished just in time for a meet­ing of the Church’s Gov­ern­ing Body in September.

(The Arch­bish­op of Wales, the Most Revd Barry Mor­gan, can be seen at the meet­ing using what looks like a copy of the altar edi­tion of the book in this picture.)

The arrival of this book was a sig­ni­fic­ant moment for me — because I had designed and type­set it. Hav­ing laboured long and hard over the text and lay­out, over page breaks and line breaks, ver­tic­al and hori­zont­al spa­cing, typeface, kerns and lig­at­ures, page num­bers and good­ness knows what else, here at last was the fin­ished product.

This is always an excit­ing event: to hold in your hands the res­ult of your own crafts­man­ship, your own hard work, and to be able to see for the first time wheth­er it has actu­ally worked, wheth­er you have achieved the effect that you wanted — in this case clar­ity and beauty com­bin­ing tra­di­tion and modernity.

Of course, many people had con­trib­uted to this volume, in ways sig­ni­fic­antly more import­ant than I had. Litur­gists had worked on drafts, revi­sion com­mit­tees and the Gov­ern­ing Body had con­sidered it, and altered it to pro­duce the final author­ized text; oth­ers had cre­ated the cov­er (by Leigh Hur­lock) and the cal­li­graphy (by Shir­ley Nor­man); and the print­er (Biddles) had pro­duced the prin­ted and bound books. But I shall remem­ber the time spent design­ing a lay­out that works, select­ing typefaces, play­ing with type size, and dif­fer­ent com­bin­a­tions of bold and ital­ic and roman, caps and small caps, cre­at­ing cus­tom lig­at­ures (Welsh requires an ‘fh’ lig­at­ure which did not exist in the selec­ted face, so I had to design one myself in roman, ital­ic, bold and bold ital­ic), and of course proofread­ing the text over and over again. Proofread­ing, espe­cially of the par­al­lel Welsh text, was also done by people at the pro­vin­cial office of the Church in Wales. All in all, the res­ult is a book to be very pleased with, I think.

And then after all that, des­pite all the care that has gone into its pro­duc­tion, you begin to notice the mis­takes. Here and there, dot­ted around, are little glitches that have escaped the proofread­ing. It’s amaz­ing that you can proofread a text so many times, both on screen and on paper proofs, and yet the minute you pick up the fin­ished product you find a few more mistakes.

I sup­pose life is like that — you can­not pro­duce the per­fect work, there are always a few little things wrong. At least with a book there is a chance to cor­rect any errors at the next print­ing! Mis­takes in life, on the oth­er hand, very often have to be lived with.

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Kent Treble Bob Major

A few weeks ago, as part of an on-line dis­cus­sion of Dorothy L Sayer’s Nine Tail­ors, I sat down and taught myself Kent Treble Bob (and Oxford Treble Bob for good meas­ure, though that doesn’t appear in the book). On Wed­nes­day I finally got a chance to try this out, at prac­tice at Hem­ing­ford Grey. We set out to ring a plain course of Kent Treble Bob Major. I chose to ring bell 6 (because I reckoned that bell 6 or bell 4 would be easi­est to keep my place — see below), but there were a num­ber of com­plic­a­tions. First, the ringer of the treble had nev­er done any treble bob hunt­ing before, but she did have an exper­i­enced ringer stand­ing behind her to help; secondly, at least two of the oth­er ringers were not entirely com­fort­able with Kent.

Why did I choose bell 6? Because, at the start, after dodging with bell 5, bell 6 next dodges in 3–4 down with the treble, and this means that next two times you find your­self in 3–4 down you have to make places (4ths then 3rds) rather than dodging, and after this second time you imme­di­ately dodge with the treble in 1–2 and go ‘into the slow’. All the bells have to do this, but 4 goes straight into the slow from the start, and 6 next time; the oth­er bells have to wait longer for this to hap­pen — more time for a begin­ner to miss this import­ant work.

So, off we went, and I was pleased that I man­aged to keep my place through­out, and so did the treble. One of the oth­er ringers was a bit wobbly, but what really threw us was that the con­duct­or — nat­ur­ally try­ing to keep track of what these inex­per­i­enced ringers were doing — him­self went wrong, telling me, for example, to dodge with him in 5–6 when I was in the slow (but I was sure I was right and ignored him). Still, we man­aged some 5 or so leads of a plain course (which would be 7 leads in total, I think). Dur­ing those 5 leads I had done all my ‘hard’ work — mak­ing places down, doing the slow work at the front, mak­ing places up — and was into the ‘ordin­ary’ work — dodging in 3–4, 5–6, and 7–8 up and down. We imme­di­ately had anoth­er go at a plain course, but — for the same reas­ons — this was less suc­cess­ful than the first.

So I was quite pleased with myself: I had rung most of a plain course of Kent Treble Bob Major, and it wasn’t my fault that it had gone wrong!

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connecting with culture

If you’re not famil­i­ar with the Lon­don Insti­tute of Con­tem­por­ary Chris­tian­ity then I sug­gest you take a look. Amongst oth­er things they have a weekly com­ment column entitled Con­nect­ing with Cul­ture which is always worth a read.

This week Nick Spen­cer writes about an infam­ous advert­ising slo­gan and the mar­ket­ing of a fash­ion chain, with import­ant les­sons about the lim­its of self-expres­sion in a free society.

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a touch of bob doubles

At the end of prac­tice at St Ives tonight we rang a touch of Bob Doubles, and I volun­teered to call it. I rang the 5 bell and called three ‘Homes’, i.e., called ‘Bob’ each time I came back to do my 4 blows in 5th place. The third time brought us straight back to rounds. This is the first time I have called a touch, and it was reas­on­ably suc­cess­ful. I prob­ably should have called ‘Bob’ frac­tion­ally earli­er — when the treble was at back­stroke before lead­ing, rather than when I was about to pull at back­stroke. And although I was unaf­fected by the bobs, I still man­aged to get slightly muddled in between so that I half missed a dodge. For­tu­nately I was able to recov­er and hadn’t lost my place. Of course, I could have chosen any of the inside bells (2,3,4 or 5) and still called three Homes. Must try and remem­ber that next time — a dis­ad­vant­age of ringing 5 with this touch is that the final bob brings the bells imme­di­ately to rounds, which doesn’t give much time for say­ing ‘That’s all’.

Next time!

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bellringing

I have moved the saga of my learn­ing to ring bells out of this blog and into A Bellringer’s Pro­gress. I don’t sup­pose any­one really cares, but although bell­ringing requires quite a bit of think­ing and it is almost entirely prac­tised in Anglic­an churches, it prob­ably doesn’t really belong here on Think­ing Anglic­ans.

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The Nine Tailors

Cover design of the Folio Society edition of The Nine Tailors

Cov­er design of the Folio Soci­ety edi­tion of The Nine Tailors

One of the things that long ago sparked an interest in bell­ringing (for we had no bells at the church I wor­shipped at as a child) was Dorothy L Say­ers The Nine Tail­ors, which I saw in the BBC tv adapt­a­tion, fea­tur­ing Ian Car­mi­chael, in the mid 1970s.

It was many years, though, before I read the book, in the lovely Folio Soci­ety edi­tion (pic­tured right), but now I belong to a read­ing group, which is cur­rently look­ing at this book. Although I have read it a couple of times before, this is the first time I have read it since I learned to ring, and I have been writ­ing posts explain­ing about bell­ringing. For prob­ably all non-bell­ringing read­ers of The Nine Tail­ors, the details of the ringing included in the book are pretty opaque — they add lots of col­our, but are largely incom­pre­hens­ible. And the chapter titles all involve puns on ringing expres­sions and the like, and these puns are missed without some know­ledge of ringing.

Since I have lived for many years on the edge of the fen­land area where the book is set I have a second interest and spe­cial­ist sub­ject area as well, and on Sat­urday I got out the car and drove around some of the area, con­cen­trat­ing on the start and end of the Old Bed­ford and New Bed­ford Rivers, between Earith and Den­ver, tak­ing lots of pic­tures. I shall have to plan anoth­er excur­sion in order to get some angel roof churches (March and Upwell, espe­cially) and some pic­tures of fen­land roads and oth­er gen­er­al scenery.

Per­haps I should turn the bell­ringing notes and the fen­land pic­tures into a web­site about The Nine Tail­ors. Mean­while, I have uploaded the pic­tures here.

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bobs in Grandsire

I need to get my head around bobs in Grand­sire Triples.

In Grand­sire, the treble always plain hunts, and in a plain course one oth­er bell plain hunts after it — bell 2 when start­ing from rounds. This oth­er bell is said to be ‘in the hunt’. At a bob this bell leaves the hunt and joins the oth­er bells in hunt­ing and dodging, and one of the oth­er bells joins the hunt in its place. How does this work?

If we are ringing bell 3, then start­ing from rounds we ring one blow at hand­stroke in third place and then hunt down to the lead, up to the back, and down again. Then we dodge in 4–5 down. The plain course con­tin­ues with dodges in 6–7 down, 6–7 up, and 4–5 up. Then we make 3rds place, which brings us back to rounds.

When a bob is called the dodges are changed in the fol­low­ing way: the bell mak­ing 3rds place is unaf­fected and each of the oth­er bells skips the dodge it would have done and instead double dodges the next dodge, so to speak. This has the fol­low­ing effect:

  • if we were going to make 3rds, then make 3rds as nor­mal (‘last thirds’)
  • if we were going to dodge 4–5 down, then instead double-dodge 6–7 down
  • if we were going to dodge 6–7 down, then instead double-dodge 6–7 up
  • if we were going to dodge 6–7 up, then instead double-dodge 4–5 up

but:

  • if we were going to dodge 4–5 up, then instead make 3rds place (‘first 3rds’) and join the hunt

and con­versely

  • if we were in the hunt, then instead double-dodge 4–5 down, leav­ing the hunt.

In this bob, two bells each make 3rds place — first the bell which would have dodged 4–5 up, but which makes 3rds and goes into the hunt. This bell makes ‘first 3rds’ at the bob. Secondly, the bell which was going to make 3rds any­way — it does so and con­tin­ues in the nor­mal way, unaf­fected by the bob. This bell makes ‘last 3rds’ at the bob.

When set down in this way it is fairly easy to remem­ber. All that has to be done is to remem­ber this in the heat of the moment: that is, know which dodge you are about to do next, and con­sider in advance what you must do if a bob hap­pens to be called. There, touches of Grand­sire Triples made easy! Except that we have not yet con­sidered the ques­tion of calls of ‘Single!’.

Foot­note (24 August 2004): A fur­ther point about bobs in Grand­sire Triples, is that when a bob is called you double-dodge in the place you are in at the moment of the call (unless you were going to dodge 4–5 up, in which case you make 3rds and go into the hunt).

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Stedman and Grandsire

Had a few more attempts at ringing Sted­man at Hem­ing­ford Grey last night. We rang a couple of plain courses of doubles: first time I rang bell num­ber 2, and after­wards I tried num­ber 3. Both times I got it right. Later in the even­ing — after more ringers had turned up — we rang triples. I rang bell 4, and star­ted off mak­ing a mess of things. I was imme­di­ately put right by the con­duct­or (‘lead now!’), and from then on I was okay. I real­ized at the time that I had prob­ably gone wrong in exactly the same way as I had done the very first time I had tried to ring Sted­man. But I could not see at all what I was doing wrong.

Later, when driv­ing home, I worked out what I had prob­ably done on both occa­sions. Bell num­ber 4 starts by dodging once with 5 (i.e., from ringing in 4th place at rounds, you ring one blow in 5th, one blow in 4th, and then ‘go in slow’, that is, two blows in 3rd place and down to the lead). I had for­got­ten to do the dodge with 5, instead try­ing to go in slow imme­di­ately with the two blows in 3rd place. Obvi­ously some­thing to remem­ber — not just ‘go in slow’, but ‘dodge 4/5 down’ first.

We also tried to ring a touch of Grand­sire Triples, with me ringing bell 6. In a plain course of Grand­sire Triples there are dodges in 4/5 up, 6/7 up, 6/7 down, 4/5 down, and then make 3rds. But I haven’t got the hang of bobs in this meth­od yet. Ringing 6 the first dodge is in 6/7 up, but a bob called before this means do a double-dodge in 4/5 up; anoth­er bob was called as I was about to make 3rd — which is unaf­fected by the call. We did this a couple of times, then a bob was called in some oth­er pos­i­tion, and I was some­what lost. We struggled to the fin­ish­ing post which was by then in sight. More work needed to under­stand bobs in Grandsire…

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ringing Stedman

After some hints at last Wednesday’s prac­tice at Hem­ing­ford Grey, I have spent a while get­ting to grips with Sted­man, a meth­od (or rather a prin­ciple) devised in the 1670s. A couple of things helped me. First, when I began to learn to ring, Sted­man was the first meth­od that I learnt to ring a cov­er bell to, and one of the things I did was to learn the pat­tern in which pairs of bells come to the back. In a note­book I had sketched this out, writ­ing out a plain course of the last two bells — the first time I had done this. The second help was that I spent an hour each way on the train to Lon­don, and decided to use it to work out the full plain course for Sted­man Doubles. Turn­ing to the back of the note­book I had with me I found my notes of 18 months earli­er which I had entirely for­got­ten about.

Sted­man is based on the two orders in which you can arrange six bells. There are only six ways you can arrange six bells, and in ringing there are only two ways of arran­ging these six dif­fer­ent changes, since a bell can only exchange places with its nearest neigh­bour (or stay in the same place). These two ways can be con­sidered as: ‘for­ward hunt­ing’ in which the bell in first place hunts to third place, and then down to the front again; and ‘back­ward hunt­ing’ where the bell in third place hunts down to the front, leads, and hunts back up to third place again. Sted­man con­sists of each of these ‘sixes’ per­formed altern­ately. At the end of each ‘six’ the bell in third place moves out of the front three into fourth place, and the bell which was in fourth place moves down to take its place. And dur­ing each ‘six’ the bells in fourth and fifth places dodge with each other.

Armed with this inform­a­tion, you can then work out a plain course of Sted­man Doubles, or indeed Triples.

12345
21354
23145
——-
32415
23451
24315
42351
43215
34251
——-
43521
45312
54321
53412
35421
34512
——-
43152
34125
31452
13425
14352
41325
——-
14235
12453
21435
24153
42135
41253
——-
14523
41532
45123
54132
51423
15432
——-
51342
53124
35142
31524
13542
15324
——-
51234
15243
12534
21543
25134
52143
——-
25413
24531
42513
45231
54213
52431
——-
25341
52314
53241
35214
32541
23514
——-
32154
31245
13254
12345

Then came the moment of truth, this Wed­nes­day. ‘Did you have a look at Sted­man?’ I am asked. ‘Right, we’ll ring Sted­man Triples.’ So we rang Sted­man Triples — and I made a com­plete hash of it. Very annoy­ing, hav­ing put some effort into thor­oughly learn­ing the ‘blue line’, and know­ing exactly what I was sup­posed to be doing — but actu­ally try­ing to remem­ber that and ring at the same time was too much. Later in the prac­tice we had anoth­er go, with me again ringing bell num­ber 4. This time — I got it right, and we rang a plain course of Sted­man Triples without me going wrong. I guess my strik­ing could have been bet­ter, but I nev­er lost my place, knew what I should be doing, and was always more or less in the right place. Phew! Now to do it a lot better.

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singles

For quite a while now prac­tice has involved ringing touches of bob doubles, minor, triples, and even bob major, in which the con­duct­or has called vari­ous bobs. So it came as some­thing of a sur­prise tonight when a ‘single’ was called a short way into a touch of bob triples. Of course, I had no idea what to do, and as I was (or should have been) affected by the call, since I would oth­er­wise have been dodging 3/4 up, the whole thing went wrong. Oh well, that’s what prac­tice nights are for.

So we had anoth­er go, after it was explained what I should be doing: if dodging 3/4 up then instead make fourth’s place, hunt to the front, and next time dodge 5/6 down; and if dodging 3/4 down then make third’s place, hunt to the back and next time make second’s place. In oth­er words, the bells that would oth­er­wise be dodging 3/4 up and 3/4 down effect­ively swap places. And it worked! We got through the touch without fur­ther errors, a single being called twice with me affected. Phew!

So in the­ory I can now ring any touch of Plain Bob. We shall see.

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