The Standard 8

The first rule of the standard 8 is no one talks about the standard 8.

This is how it often feels about this mysterious group. So to shed some light on them I ask the pertinent questions.

What is the Standard 8?
The Standard 8 are a group of surprise major methods that are generally rang together, they are:
Cambridge
Yorkshire
Lincolnshire
Superlative
Pudsey
Rutland
London
Bristol

They are often grouped into the Cambridge-like ones:
Cambridge (unsurprisingly), Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Superlative

The 'difficult' ones:
Bristol and London

and the other two:
Rutland and Pudsey

Why are they the Standard 8?
Principally, they are the standard 8 because that is what people learn to ring and ring together with other ringers, the 2011 peal analysis shows that the number of each type of peal:
Cambridge - 120 (6%)
Yorkshire - 187 (9%)
Lincolnshire - 50 (2%)
Superlative - 59 (3%)
Pudsey - 19 (1%)
Rutland - 48 (2%)
London - 64 (3%)
Bristol - 220 (11%)

Could they change?
Certainly they could, indeed there was a movement to have an alternative group of 8 methods to include less Cambridge like methods, these became known as the Nottingham 8 and had:
Cambridge
Superlative
London
Bristol
Lessness
Cornwall
Cassiobury
Glasgow