I'm keen to get going with this. I'm away for a week from Oct 18th to 25th and I would hate to miss all the action.

I think stone-rowing has to be the first thing we do. We must establish that as THE primary idea. The erection thing can then follow on as our "next" application of stone-rowing. Stone-rowing is going to bowl them over in a way that erecting a stone will not. Our ideas for stone erecting may be seen as controversial and it would be a huge pity for the beauty and simplicity of stone-rowing to be lost in the ensuing confusion. Once we have stone-rowing "in the bag", we will have gained some credibility that will help us enormously when it comes to erecting.

So here are a couple of alternative ideas:

Plan B: I don't think there's any law against stone-rowing on public land ;^). Does anyone know of a stone that's just lying on the ground somewhere suitable so we could row it around and then put it back where we found it? It would have to be one that has no archaeological interest and it needs to be near some suitable hills. There must be something in the Peak District or the Lake District that we could use. There are some big pieces of stone below the escarpment of Roseberry Topping (look it up on TMA) and the land around has a wide variety of slopes. I'll try to check it out at the weekend.

Plan C: If we could get someone to deliver a 10 tonner to some public place in the Derbyshire dales (or anywhere else for that matter) we could row away to our heart's content. We might have to pick the stone up and take it away again so we don't get done for littering. Do you know any friendly builder's merchants in the area with a HIAB? Even if we had to pay them £50 or so, it would be worth it. They might be persuaded to do it on a Sunday if we give the driver a bit extra. If it's just a case of the money, I'll send you a cheque, Gordon.

I do think we need some sort of test, and a strategy - the valley where they got the stones from is a nightmare, full of stones, hillocks, buried stones. It would be virtually impossible to pick a perfect line, where there was never a case where one log wasn't a bit tilted or elevated or both relative to another, so they must have had a means to cope. Apart from the danger of the logs rolling on a cross-slope, which I agree we should simply avoid, how does rowing perform if one or more logs are tilted? I'm not saying we have to choose somewhere severe, but it would be good if we could say we know our system would have performed OK there. People will ask, and it would be a shame if we had to say Oh well they must have dragged them at some points. Maybe they did in places but the fewer instances that our system leaves the stronger will be the confidence with which it's received. I guess our unprecedentedly good steering will be a very persuasive factor, and we should make a big deal out of demonstrating it.

Incidentally, what about the braking system when we're going downhill?