Thinking allowed

What happens next?

on Friday, 31 January 2020 at 1.18 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as opinion

At around 2pm on Tues­day 30 Janu­ary 1649, fol­low­ing a show tri­al and con­vic­tion, King Charles I was executed. It is said that a great moan “as I nev­er heard before and desire I may nev­er hear again” arose from the crowd assembled in White­hall, and the event sent shock­waves around the coun­try and across Europe. It was the most dis­rupt­ive event seen in the coun­try, cer­tainly since Henry Tudor had defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bos­worth to bring a final end to the Wars of the Roses. King Charles had not per­haps been a great king, and his record as ruler is not unblem­ished: his mis­for­tunes at least partly he had brought upon him­self by his stub­borness, and by his view of his role as king by divine right.

And today, 31 Janu­ary 2020, we see anoth­er dis­rupt­ive event. At 11pm this coun­try will form­ally leave the European Uni­on, bring­ing to an end the leg­al rela­tion­ship that began nearly 50 years ago on 1 Janu­ary 1973. It is an event that over the last few years has divided the coun­try, divided fam­il­ies and friends in a way rarely seen. It would have been hard to pre­dict, even five years ago, what would come to pass, and what a bit­ter turn our polit­ic­al sys­tem and polit­ic­al dia­logue would take. But whatever mis­giv­ings many of us will feel, the legis­la­tion is in place, and the deed will hap­pen later today. For many this is a sad and bit­ter day: the European pro­ject in which we have par­ti­cip­ated for half a cen­tury was forged in the after­math of the Second World War. It ori­gin­ated in treat­ies that tied the former war­ring coun­tries, led by France and Ger­many, into trade deals that made them more and more depend­ent on each oth­er, and there­fore so much less likely to go to war again. In the pre­vi­ous 100 years, France and Ger­many had been at war three times, Par­is had twice been occu­pied by Ger­many, and Alsace-Lor­raine had changed coun­try four times. Alsace-Lor­raine and its city of Stras­bourg were a key coal and steel pro­du­cing region, and the EU began as a “coal and steel com­munity”. For 60 years or more the EU and its pre­de­cessors have played an import­ant part in ensur­ing that there was not anoth­er war in west­ern Europe – whilst the trans-Atlantic NATO alli­ance helped pre­vent war with the Soviet Uni­on and its east­ern European satel­lite states. The EU has also played its part in ensur­ing that our ideals of demo­cracy and equal­ity before the law, of free­dom from state oppres­sion and so on have prospered with­in its mem­ber coun­tries. Greece, Por­tugal and Spain, all formerly under the rule of right-wing or mil­it­ary dic­tat­or­ships, were the first to bene­fit from this, their fledgling demo­cra­cies join­ing the Com­munity in the 1980s.  And after the fall of the Soviet Uni­on the coun­tries of east­ern Europe queued up to join the Uni­on, keen for both the eco­nom­ic bene­fits and the sup­port for demo­cracy and rule of law. These bene­fits have not come for free. The EU and its pre­de­cessors have fun­ded the devel­op­ment of poorer parts of Europe, help­ing to remove the social prob­lems that led to polit­ic­al prob­lems. That has meant that the rich­er, more stable coun­tries, such as our own, as well as France and Ger­many and the rich­er north-west­ern fringe have seen a net out­flow of money, of tax rev­en­ue. That is per­haps the price of peace, and is con­sid­er­ably cheap­er both fin­an­cially and in terms of human lives than war would have been. But over­all there has been a longer peri­od of peace between these coun­tries than at any time in the past, and a great­er and pro­longed peri­od of eco­nom­ic prosper­ity, des­pite vari­ous hic­cups along the way.

So what happens next?

We know what happened after the exe­cu­tion of Charles I.

In the imme­di­ate after­math, Par­lia­ment, led by Crom­well, refused to allow the pro­clam­a­tion of the Prince of Wales as King Charles II, and instead declared the abol­i­tion of the mon­archy. A repub­lic­an form of gov­ern­ment, the “Com­mon­wealth”, was put in place, the House of Lords abol­ished, and bish­ops removed. The rump of the Long Par­lia­ment (which had engin­eered the king’s tri­al and exe­cu­tion) con­tin­ued to sit. That Par­lia­ment had been elec­ted in 1640, before the Civil War, though at the end of 1648 the Army, led by Col­on­el Pride, had expelled those mem­bers that did not sup­port the Army. In 1653, Crom­well ejec­ted this Rump Par­lia­ment and the coun­try essen­tially became a kind of mil­it­ary dic­tat­or­ship, with Oliv­er Crom­well, the lead­er of the Army, as the strongman.

In 1659, after Oliv­er Crom­well had died, there was finally a reac­tion. The Long Par­lia­ment was restored, and it called for a return to mon­archy. After a peri­od of nego­ti­ation, in May 1660 the eld­est son of Charles I returned to Eng­land from exile in the Neth­er­lands, and was pro­claimed and crowned as King Charles II. The restored mon­archy was not quite the same as that which had been abol­ished in 1649, and Charles II under­stood the lim­its with­in which he ruled. It had taken 11 years from the exe­cu­tion of his fath­er until the Res­tor­a­tion, and many of those years must have been dark and dif­fi­cult for the exiled prince, and dark and dif­fi­cult for his sup­port­ers back in Bri­tain. But even­tu­ally they pre­vailed, and the repub­lic­an Com­mon­wealth was con­signed to his­tory, a mere foot­note in the list of Kings and Queens.

Will some­thing sim­il­ar hap­pen? Will there be a peri­od in which this coun­try gradu­ally comes to see that it has made an enorm­ous mis­take, lead­ing even­tu­ally to a reas­sess­ment of our pos­i­tion, and finally a sig­ni­fic­ant major­ity to want to rejoin the European Uni­on? That is my hope and expect­a­tion. Maybe it will take a dec­ade or more, just as it took a dec­ade or so for the mon­archy to be restored in 1660. It does take time to make such a major change in polit­ic­al dir­ec­tion, and right now we are mov­ing on the oppos­ite course.

But the dark day of 30 Janu­ary 1649 held the prom­ise of res­tor­a­tion. And this dark day too, 31 Janu­ary 2020, holds that prom­ise also.

Remem­ber!

2 Comments

The Structure of Lancashire and Bristol Surprise Major

on Tuesday, 26 March 2019 at 3.31 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, learning new methods

An earli­er post described the struc­ture of Bris­tol Sur­prise Major in terms of either treble bob­bing with the treble, or plain hunt­ing right and wrong without the treble. Lan­cashire Sur­prise Major is built on the same prin­ciples, the primary dif­fer­ence being that plain hunt­ing right and wrong are done the oth­er way round. Addi­tion­ally, in Lan­cashire a bell makes 2nd place at the lead end, and the bells in 3–4 con­tin­ue dodging with each oth­er (and at the half lead a bell makes 7th place under the treble, while the bells in 5–6 con­tin­ue dodging with each other).

We can show the two meth­ods along­side each oth­er, like this:

		1	2	3	4		5	6	7	8		b		1	2	3	4		5	6	7	8
		Bris­tol												Lan­cashire
		-	1	-	-		-	-	-	-		h		-	1	-	-		-	-	-	-
		1	-	-	-		-	-	-	-		b		1	-	-	-		-	-	-	-
		-	1	-	-		-	-	-	-		h		-	1	-	-		-	-	-	-
												-
		-	-	1	-		-	-	-	-		b		-	-	1	-		-	-	-	-
		-	-	-	1		-	-	-	-		h		-	-	-	1		-	-	-	-
		-	-	1	-		-	-	-	-		b		-	-	1	-		-	-	-	-
		-	-	-	1		-	-	-	-		h		-	-	-	1		-	-	-	-
												-
7 dodges down with treble in 5–6;		-	-	-	5		1	7	8	6		b		-	-	-	-		1	7	8	6
8 & 6 dodge at the back		-	-	-	-		7	1	6	8		h		-	-	-	-		7	1	6	8
		-	-	-	-		1	7	8	6		b		-	-	-	-		1	7	8	6
		-	-	-	-		7	1	6	8		h		-	-	-	-		7	1	6	8
												-
8 dodges down with the treble in 7–8;		-	-	-			7	6	1	8		b		-	-	-	-		7	6	1	8
7 & 6 dodge in 5–6		-	-	-	-		6	7	8	1		h		-	-	-	-		6	7	8	1
		-	-	-	-		7	6	1	8		b		-	-	-	-		7	6	1	8
approach­ing half-lead: bell in 5th place drops down to the front 4; bell in 4th place comes out to the back 4		-	-	-	5		6	7	8	1		h		-	-	-	-		6	7	8	1
												hl
7 dodges up with the treble in 7–8;		-	-	-	6		5	8	7	1		b		-	-	-	-		7	6	8	1		treble-bob­bing bells change direction
5 & 8 dodge in 5–6		-	-	-	-		8	5	1	7		h		-	-	-	-		6	7	1	8
		-	-	-	-		5	8	7	1		b		-	-	-	-		7	6	8	1
		-	-	-	-		8	5	1	7		h		-	-	-	-		6	7	1	8
												-
8 dodges up with the treble in 5–6;		-	-	-	-		8	1	5	7		b		-	-	-	-		6	1	7	8
5 & 7 dodge at the back		-	-	-	-		1	8	7	5		h		-	-	-	-		1	6	8	7
		-	-	-	-		8	1	5	7		b		-	-	-	-		6	1	7	8
		-	-	-	6		1	8	7	5		h		-	-	-	4		1	6	8	7
												-
treble goes down; 6 comes up		-	-	-	1		6	8	5	7		b		-	-	-	1		4	6	7	8		treble goes down; 4 comes up
back four bells plain hunt wrong		-	-	1	-		6	5	8	7		h		-	-	1	-		6	4	8	7		back four bells plain hunt right
(b&h)		-	-	-	1		5	6	7	8		b		-	-	-	1		6	8	4	7		(h&b)
		-	-	1	-		5	7	6	8		h		-	-	1	-		8	6	7	4
												-
back four bells plain hunt right		-	1	-	-		7	5	8	6		b		-	1	-	-		6	8	4	7		back four bells plain hunt wrong
(h&b)		1	-	-	-		5	7	6	8		h		1	-	-	-		6	4	8	7		(b&h)
		-	1	-	-		5	6	7	8		b		-	1	-	-		4	6	7	8
approach­ing lead end: bell in 5th place drops down to the front 4; bell in 4th place comes out to the back 4		1	-	-	3		6	5	8	7		h		1	-	-	-		4	7	6	8
												-
lead end		1	-	-	6		3	8	5	7		b		1	-	-	-		7	4	8	6
												le
new place bells for this lead							5	6	7	8									5	6	7	8		new place bells for this lead
back four bells plain hunt right		-	1	-	-		6	5	8	7		h		-	1	-	-		5	7	6	8		back four bells plain hunt wrong
(h&b)		1	-	-	-		6	8	5	7		b		1	-	-	-		7	5	8	6		(b&h)
		-	1	-	-		8	6	7	5		h		-	1	-	-		7	8	5	6
												-
back four bells plain hunt wrong		-	-	1	-		6	8	5	7		b		-	-	1	-		8	7	6	5		back four bells plain hunt right
(b&h)		-	-	-	1		6	5	8	7		h		-	-	-	1		7	8	5	6		(h&b)
		-	-	1	-		5	6	7	8		b		-	-	1	-		7	5	8	6
		-	-	-	1		5	7	6	8		h		-	-	-	1		5	7	6	8
												-
7 dodges down with treble in 5–6;		-	-	-	5		1	7	8	6		b		-	-	-	5		1	7	8	6
8 & 6 dodge at the back

 

 

0 Comments

The Structure of Bristol Surprise Major

on Tuesday, 26 March 2019 at 2.06 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, learning new methods

Some 18 months ago, I described learn­ing Bris­tol Sur­prise Major. I haven’t rung very much of it since then, but I want to look at its struc­ture – what the dif­fer­ent bells are doing and how it fits togeth­er. Because it’s really very simple, and can be described in a few short sentences:

1. The treble always treble bobs, out to the back, and then back down to the front, over and over again.
2. The oth­er bells work togeth­er, either as a group on the front four, or as a group on the back four, and from time to time a bell moves from the front group to the back group, or vice versa.
   So far so good, now for the clev­er part:
3. All the bells in the group that con­tains the treble simply treble-bob inside that group, in phase with the treble, up and down or down and up, until the treble crosses to the oth­er group.
4. The four bells in the oth­er group (the one without the treble) just plain hunt; and every time the treble (which is in the oth­er group) moves from one dodging pos­i­tion to anoth­er, the four plain-hunt­ing bells switch from hunt­ing “right” (where “lead­ing” and “lying” are made at hand and back) to hunt­ing “wrong” (where “lead­ing” and “lying” are made at back and hand) or vice versa. See below for an explan­a­tion of mov­ing from one dodging pos­i­tion to anoth­er and of “lead­ing” and “lying”.
5. There are three occa­sions when a bell, oth­er than the treble, passes from one group to the other. 
   1. When the treble itself moves from one group to the oth­er, a bell from the oth­er group must move in the oppos­ite direction;
   2. When the treble leads or lies, the two bells that are in 4–5 swap places.

And that’s it. Now you under­stand how Bris­tol Sur­prise Major works.

Before mov­ing on, an explan­a­tion or cla­ri­fic­a­tion of the words mov­ing from one dodging pos­i­tion to anoth­er. The treble dodges 1–2 up, and then moves to dodge 3–4 up, and then to dodge 5–6 up. The four strokes when it is in 3–4 are one dodging pos­i­tion, and the four strokes when it is in 5–6 are the next dodging pos­i­tion. The point at which the treble moves from one dodging pos­i­tion to the next is called a cross-sec­tion.

At the lead-end and the half-lead, the meth­od is sym­met­ric as the treble leads or lies at the back, and so the plain-hunt­ing bells do not change dir­ec­tion. The treble is con­sidered to be in the same dodging pos­i­tion (1–2) all the time that it is dodging 1–2 down, lead­ing, and dodging 1–2 up at the front, and sim­il­arly in the 7–8 dodging pos­i­tion all the time that it is dodging 7–8 up, lying, and dodging 7–8 down at the back. Express­ing that slightly dif­fer­ently, at the front and back, the treble spends eight strokes in the same dodging pos­i­tion: eight strokes in 1–2 (when it is dodging 1–2 down, lead­ing, and dodging 1–2 up); and eight strokes in 7–8 (when it is dodging 7–8 up, lying, and dodging 7–8 down). So when the treble is at the front or the back, the bells that are respect­ively at the back or the front all plain hunt for eight blows before chan­ging dir­ec­tion. We’ll see this more clearly when we trace out the work of each bell.

It’s also worth not­ing that “lead­ing” and “lying” are in quo­ta­tion marks, because this term here includes lead­ing and lying with­in each group of four. So if while plain hunt­ing you are mak­ing two blows in fourth place this is included in “lying” because you are lying at the back of your group of four; and sim­il­arly if while plain hunt­ing you are mak­ing two blows in fifth place this is included in “lead­ing” because you are lead­ing your group of four.

With that intro­duc­tion, we can look at how the bells inter­act with each oth­er and with the treble.

(more…)

1 Comment

T S Eliot Festival 2018

on Friday, 13 July 2018 at 3.11 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as events

This year’s T S Eli­ot Fest­iv­al at Little Gid­ding was held on Sunday 8 July 2018. Here is a selec­tion of pic­tures by Carry Akroyd.

0 Comments

Centenary of the WW1 Armistice

on Wednesday, 6 June 2018 at 2.28 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as commemoration, liturgical texts, liturgy

Over the last few years the Church of Eng­land has pub­lished vari­ous litur­gic­al resources for com­mem­or­at­ing the cen­ten­ary of sig­ni­fic­ant moments in the First World War.

It has now added to that col­lec­tion a set of resources for the cen­ten­ary of the Armistice on 11 Novem­ber, and entitled ‘Steps towards Recon­cili­ation’: a mono­logue inter­spersed with words and music.

How are we to mark the end of a War in which so many lives were lost and dam­aged? We will cer­tainly remem­ber, but we must also com­mit ourselves afresh to work­ing togeth­er for peace. Recon­cili­ation requires an hon­est ‘truth telling’, and the text that fol­lows seeks to respect the fact that we may only be able to take steps towards that goal.

This is an ima­gin­at­ive and thought­ful resource that can be used in a num­ber of set­tings on and around 11 Novem­ber 2018. It has been com­piled by mem­bers of the Litur­gic­al Commission.

The text is avail­able as a pdf file here.

1 Comment

Towards a Safer Church: Liturgical Resources

on Monday, 4 June 2018 at 1.04 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as liturgical texts, liturgy

On Fri­day, the Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion of the Church of Eng­land pub­lished “safe­guard­ing resources, for use in churches across the coun­try, includ­ing Bible read­ings, pray­ers and sug­ges­ted hymns, chosen in con­sulta­tion with sur­viv­ors” under the title Towards a Safer Church: Litur­gic­al Resources.

There is a press release here, and the litur­gic­al resources are avail­able in PDF format here

The Chair of the Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion, Robert Atwell, Bish­op of Exeter, in an intro­duc­tion to the resources has written:

The Church needs to be at the van­guard of fos­ter­ing a change of cul­ture across soci­ety. Safe­guard­ing is at the fore­front of pub­lic con­scious­ness and the Church needs to embody best prac­tice in safe­guard­ing in our net­work of par­ishes, schools and chap­lain­cies as part of our com­mit­ment to excel­lence in pas­tor­al care.

Many of these resources are already being used widely across our churches, but we thought it would be help­ful to gath­er them into one place for ease of access. Col­lect­ively they are neither the first word nor the last word on this sub­ject, but they are offered in the hope that by God’s grace the Church may become a safer place where every­one is valued.

Libby Lane, Bish­op of Stock­port, has also writ­ten about the resources here

The resources have been com­piled by the Litur­gic­al Com­mis­sion and staff, in con­sulta­tion with sur­viv­ors, who have them­selves sug­ges­ted some of the resources, with the aim provid­ing pray­ers and oth­er resources for vari­ous occa­sions. This includes use with sur­viv­ors and oth­ers dir­ectly affected, as well as events such as the com­mis­sion­ing of safe­guard­ing officers in par­ishes and dio­ceses. Most of the mater­i­al had been pre­vi­ously pub­lished (includ­ing com­men­ded and author­ized litur­gic­al texts), but it has been brought togeth­er in one place so that it is easi­er to find and to use.

(This item has also been pos­ted on the main Think­ing Anglic­ans page.)

0 Comments

Thinking about Yorkshire and Pudsey Surprise

on Thursday, 22 March 2018 at 5.34 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, learning new methods

I looked recently at the under­ly­ing struc­ture of Cam­bridge Sur­prise on any num­ber of bells (6 or more), and now I want to do the same with York­shire and Pud­sey Sur­prise on any num­ber (8 or more, since they are false on 6 bells, though still ringable as Yorkshire/Pudsey Block Delight Minor). This may well not dir­ectly help you to ring these meth­ods, espe­cially if you are just learn­ing them. But under­stand­ing the struc­ture of a meth­od helps you know why you’re doing what you are doing, and what oth­er bells are doing around you.

You might think Pud­sey is a slightly odd choice to include imme­di­ately after Cam­bridge, but there’s a good reas­on why. In many ways it is the com­ple­ment of York­shire: the changes each of these meth­ods make, com­pared with Cam­bridge, are essen­tially identic­al except that they are made in dif­fer­ent places.

The basic idea of York­shire and Pud­sey is sim­il­ar to Cam­bridge: the treble always treble-bob hunts in each dodging pos­i­tion (1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, etc); and wherever pos­sible the oth­er bells treble-bob hunt, but out of phase with the treble.

(See the art­icle on Cam­bridge struc­ture for a remind­er of what it means to treble-bob hunt either in phase or out of phase with the treble.)

But York­shire and Pud­sey each make one addi­tion­al change to Cam­bridge. In each of them there is one bell that treble-bob hunts in phase with and adja­cent to the treble, and the oth­er bells have to deal with that bell as well as with the treble. The two meth­ods dif­fer only in which bell is in phase with the treble, and there­fore in which places the extra adjust­ments must be made.

In Pud­sey, it is the 3rd-place bell, which treble-bobs up to the back, dodging down with the treble and mak­ing places under the treble at the half-lead, and then dodging up with the treble and back down. Except when dodging with the treble at the back it is always one dodging pos­i­tion high­er than the treble.

In York­shire, con­versely, a bell treble-bobs down to the front, dodges up with the treble and makes 2nds place, and then dodges down with the treble and treble bobs out to the back. This bell treble bobs one dodging pos­i­tion lower than the treble. Where­as in Pud­sey the work begins and ends when the treble is at the front, in York­shire it begins and ends when the treble is at the back, i.e. from the half-lead to the next half lead, and begins as the work of the 5th-place bell, which becomes the 2nd-place bell at the lead-end in the middle of this piece of work.

York­shire				Pud­sey
half-lead end	-----5-1		1-3-----	lead end
	----5-1-		-1-3----
	-----5-1		1-3-----
	----5-1-		-1-3----
treble-bobs down to the front	---5-1--		--1-3---	treble-bobs out to the back
	--5-1---		---1-3--
	---5-1--		--1-3---
	--5-1---		---1-3--
	-5-1----		----1-3-
	5-1-----		-----1-3
	-5-1----		----1-3-
	5-1-----		-----1-3
	51------		------13
	15------		------31
where it dodges with the treble	51------		------13	where it dodges with the treble
	15------		------31
makes 2nd place over the treble	12------		------31	makes (n‑1)th place under the treble
	21------		------13
and dodges down with the treble	12------		------31	and dodges up with the treble
	21------		------13
	2-1-----		-----1-3
and treble bobs out	-2-1----		----1-3-	and treble bobs down
	2-1-----		-----1-3
	-2-1----		----1-3-
	--2-1---		---1-3--
	---2-1--		--1-3---
	--2-1---		---1-3--
	---2-1--		--1-3---
	----2-1-		-1-3----
	-----2-1		1-3-----
	----2-1-		-1-3----
	-----2-1		1-3-----
	----2--1		1--3----

These two pieces of work are mir­ror images of each other.

Next, let’s con­sider one small but import­ant point. In York­shire, the bell treble-bob­bing in phase with the treble is below the treble. The oth­er bells must change their beha­viour (com­pared with Cam­bridge) whenev­er they meet this bell, and by defin­i­tion that can only hap­pen below the treble, since that’s where this in-phase treble bob­bing hap­pens. Whenev­er a bell is above the treble it behaves in exactly the same fash­ion as it would in Cam­bridge. That’s why York­shire is “Cam­bridge above the treble”.

In Pud­sey, on the oth­er hand, the bell treble-bob­bing in-phase with the treble is above the treble. The oth­er bells must adjust their beha­viour when they meet this bell above the treble, so the changes from Cam­bridge occur above the treble, but below the treble Pud­sey is the same as Cambridge.

Now let’s turn to the oth­er bells. They are try­ing to treble-bob out of phase, so when they encounter these two bells (the treble and the bell in-phase with the treble) then they must adapt their work.

Because the two bells are in adja­cent pos­i­tions, we will dodge with one and plain hunt past the oth­er, though which of these comes first depends on where we meet them. And in addi­tion, we must also make places adja­cent to the dodge to switch phase.

There are two possibilities.

We can either plain hunt past a bell, dodge with the oth­er, and then make places and (now back out of phase) dodge again. Or else we do the oppos­ite of this: after dodging out of phase, we make places to get in phase, dodge with one of the in-phase bells and then plain hunt past the other.

Which we do depends on wheth­er we have already dodged when we meet the first of the two bells.

If we meet the first of the two bells after we have dodged, then they have not yet dodged, so we must make places to wait for them, dodge, and then pass through the next dodging pos­i­tion to get back out of phase, and then resume out-of-phase treble bob­bing. (In the fol­low­ing dia­grams the treble and the in-phase bell are labelled p and q; in Pud­sey p is the treble and q the in-phase bell; in York­shire p is the in-phase bell and q is the treble.)

when going down to the front		when going out to the back
p-q--x--		--x--p-q
-p-qx---		---xp-q-
p-q-x---		---x-p-q
-p-q-x--		--x-p-q-
--p-qx--		--xp-q--
---pxq--		--pxq---
--p-qx--		--xp-q--
---pxq--		--pxq---
---xp-q-		-p-qx---
--x--p-q		p-q--x--
-x--p-q-		-p-q--x-
x----p-q		p-q----x
-x----pq		pq----x-
x-----qp		qp-----x
Altern­at­ively, if we meet the two bells before we have dodged, then they have already dodged and one of them is about to come into our cur­rent pos­i­tion so we must miss a dodge and go straight on to dodge with the oth­er one, and hav­ing done so, make places to get back out of phase and resume out-of-phase treble-bobbing:
p-q--x--		--x--p-q
-p-qx---		---xp-q-
--pxq---		---pxq--
--xp-q--		--p-qx--
--pxq---		---pxq--
--xp-q--		--p-qx--
--x-p-q-		-p-q-x--
---x-p-q		p-q-x---
---xp-q-		-p-qx---
--x--p-q		p-q--x--
---x--pq		pq--x---
--x---qp		qp---x--

There’s one more detail before we have enough inform­a­tion to under­stand each of these meth­ods. If we are about to meet the treble or in-phase bell at the back, when we are in the top­most dodging pos­i­tion, then rather than miss­ing a dodge or mak­ing places to get in phase we add an extra dodge. We’ve already seen this in Cam­bridge when we were about to meet the treble and we were at the back. York­shire here is identic­al to Cam­bridge (because we are above the treble), but in Pud­sey this also applies when meet­ing the in-phase bell, so we must do these double dodges when about to meet that bell. And because the meth­od is sym­met­ric­al, when we said “about to meet”, the same applies when “reach­ing the back hav­ing just met”, as it does in Cambridge.

In the full art­icle, we’ll look at the details of York­shire, then at Pud­sey, and then do a final com­par­is­on of the two methods.

(more…)

0 Comments

Thinking about Yorkshire Surprise

on Monday, 5 March 2018 at 2.38 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, learning new methods

I looked recently at the under­ly­ing struc­ture of Cam­bridge Sur­prise on any num­ber of bells (6 or more), and now I want to do the same with York­shire Sur­prise on any num­ber (8 or more, since it is false on 6 bells).

The basic idea of York­shire is sim­il­ar to Cam­bridge: the treble always treble-bob hunts in each dodging pos­i­tion (1–2, 3–4, 5–6, 7–8, etc), and wherever pos­sible the oth­er bells treble-bob hunt, but out of phase with the treble.

(See the art­icle on Cam­bridge struc­ture for a remind­er of what it means to treble-bob hunt either in phase or out of phase with the treble.)

In York­shire there is an excep­tion to this out-of-phase treble bob­bing: start­ing when the treble is dodging at the back, one of the bells treble-bobs in phase with the treble and one dodging pos­i­tion below it, mak­ing 2nd place over the treble at the lead-end, and con­tinu­ing in phase until the treble reaches the back again.

Everything else in York­shire is a con­sequence of this change from Cambridge.

The bell that starts doing this in-phase treble bob­bing is the 5th-place bell, from the half-lead when it has passed the treble at the back, and con­tinu­ing as the 2nd-place bell until the half-lead as it approaches the back. For brev­ity, I call this piece of work the in-phase bell, because it is treble-bob hunt­ing in phase with the treble. (This isn’t a short­hand I have come across else­where, but it is a con­veni­ent term.)

Because the treble and the in-phase bell are in adja­cent dodging pos­i­tions, the oth­er bells meet the in-phase bell imme­di­ately before or imme­di­ately after meet­ing the treble, They must either pass it or dodge with it, just as they do with the treble.

Remem­ber that in Cam­bridge places a bell dodges with the treble in the middle of the work, mak­ing places either side of that dodge in order first to get in phase with the treble, and then to get back out of phase. But in York­shire there is imme­di­ately anoth­er in-phase bell to deal with: so if we have dodged with the treble we must cur­tail Cam­bridge places to pass the in-phase bell. Or altern­at­ively, if it’s the treble that is passed, then we must dodge with the in-phase bell and make places to change phase. This changes Cam­bridge places into York­shire places and also adds them in pos­i­tions where in Cam­bridge you just plain hunt past the treble.

Let’s see what that means in practice.

(more…)

0 Comments

Looking at Cambridge Surprise (again)

on Thursday, 1 February 2018 at 9.20 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, learning new methods

I’ve been ringing Cam­bridge Sur­prise for quite a few years now. I began with Minor (in 2005), learn­ing the vari­ous pieces of work by rote. Then when I could do that I moved on to Major (in 2006), again, learn­ing by rote the bits that were dif­fer­ent from Minor. Then I got to the point that I could barely remem­ber how to ring Minor, because I always for­got which bits of Major to leave out. I’ve got over that too, and recently have begun to ring Minor a bit more, because we have ringers who have moved on to learn­ing it.

All of which sparked an interest in learn­ing Cam­bridge Sur­prise Roy­al, i.e. on 10 bells. (Ringing it would be a rather dif­fer­ent mat­ter as I’m not a ten-bell ringer, and although I have rung Caters a hand­ful of times, I’ve nev­er rung Roy­al. But I want to stick with the the­ory for a bit.)

So I looked up the blue line for Cam­bridge Sur­prise Roy­al, and in search­ing for it I came instead across descrip­tions of Cam­bridge, and I real­ized I had been miss­ing some­thing about Cam­bridge all these years. The sort of thing that makes me won­der wheth­er I could have learnt the meth­od in a much bet­ter way — rather than learn­ing sec­tions by rote, and then re-learn­ing it by place bells, instead learn­ing it and ringing it from first prin­ciples. Because the prin­ciple behind Cam­bridge, on any num­ber of bells, is quite simple.

Here it is:

• the treble always treble-bob hunts from the front, out to the back where it lies behind and then treble-bob hunts down to the front again; and it does this over and over again, (n‑1) times in a plain course, where n is the num­ber of bells (6 for Minor, 8 for Major, 10 for Roy­al, etc).

• each of the oth­er bells also treble-bob hunts, but it does so “out of phase” with the treble. This means that whenev­er it meets the treble, it must change its pat­tern of treble-bob hunt­ing to fit around the treble.

What do we mean by treble-bob hunt­ing “out of phase”, and what are the con­sequences of this?

(more…)

1 Comment

learning London Surprise Major

on Friday, 17 November 2017 at 7.52 pm by Simon Kershaw
categorised as bellringing, learning new methods

Hav­ing more or less suc­cess­fully rung a Plain course of Bris­tol Sur­prise Major last week­end, it’s time — like Dick Whit­ting­ton — to turn to Lon­don: Lon­don Sur­prise Major, that is. Lon­don is the last of the “stand­ard eight” Sur­prise Major meth­ods, and Cole­man describes it as the zenith of stand­ard sur­prise. But he also sug­gests that it is easi­er to learn than Bris­tol, and strongly recom­mends learn­ing it by place bells. Oth­er Lon­don web pages seem to agree, one sug­gest­ing learn­ing pairs of place bells togeth­er, as in each pair one is the mir­ror of the other.

The order of the place bells is the same as for Rut­land and Bris­tol: 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 6, 4; with the pairs being: 2 and 4, 3 and 6, and 5 and 8; while 7 is sym­met­ric about the half-lead end.

There are a few famil­i­ar pieces of work:

• Sted­man whole turn, which occurs only on the front
• fish­tails, which occur at the back (8–7‑8), and also both ways in 5–6 — 6–5‑6 and 5–6‑5
• plain hunt­ing below the treble — but plain hunt­ing “wrong”, i.e., lead­ing with back­stroke then hand­stroke (“back and hand”) rather than hand­stroke then back­stroke (“hand and back”)
• treble-bob hunt­ing above the treble, some­times “right” and some­times “wrong”

When you meet, or are about to meet, the treble you have to get back into phase with it, either to pass it, or to dodge with it. You do this by mak­ing a place, or by doing a Sted­man whole turn, or doing fishtails.

Anoth­er point to note is that the 4th-place bell and above all start in the oppos­ite dir­ec­tion com­pared with most meth­ods learned so far. So even bells (≥4) go out, and odd bells (>4) go in. The 8th-place bell strikes an extra blow at hand­stroke in 8th place before going down.

Oth­er than that it seems that the only way to learn this is by place bells, which we do in the full article.

(more…)

1 Comment