John Walker's Electronic House

Rum Doings Episode 64: Naughty Hats

by on Mar.17, 2011, under Rum Doings, The Rest

Yay salt for my chips! Welcome to Rum Doings Episode 64, a very special episode scripted by former Doctor Who helmsmen, Russell “T” Davies.

As part of their multiracial, intrasexual, post-masculinism relationship, Nick and John discuss the lameness of John’s name, the tendency for Victorians to not die properly, and how we actually recorded this episode before the Ben Goldacre one.

Our Welsh accents make another appearance, we discuss Old Man Murray, and John explains the full glory of the Cat Moustache puzzle from Gabriel Knight 3. THAT HE NOTICED FIRST.

See behind the scenes for how we come up with our topics to not discuss. Then we moisten our palates with a mixed fruit cider. And then wedding cakes. We continue our hatred of the blind, ponder Brian Blessed’s continued existence, and the collapse of Leslie Nielson’s career. Especially of late.

Our CGI voices will dazzle you. And we finish by discussing those naughty hat websites, and enacting modem noises. (Nick’s are incredible.)

Tweet it, Facebook it, ask strangers on Formspring about it. And writing a review on iTunes brings us more attention.

If you want to email us, you can do that here. If you want to be a “fan” of ours on Facebook, which apparently people still do, you can do that here.

To get this episode directly, right click and save here. To subscribe to Rum Doings click here, or you can find it in iTunes here.

Or you can listen to it right here!

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/rumdoings_e64.mp3]
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31 Comments for this entry

  • Daniel Rivas

    I watched the first couple of episodes of Queer as Folk last year. The bumming was adequate, but there was some truly horrendous acting.

    And we still had metered dial-up until some time in 2006, so there you go.

  • Gassalasca

    I thought Tony Slattery had some really awesome bits on Whose Line. Shame what happened to him.

    But anyway, I’ve never watched anything by Russell T, and wanted to ask you to recommend something. But it must have Welsh characters.

  • Alex B

    I went onto some favourite naughty hat sites (For science, of course.) and one redirected me to wikipedia, and one directed me to *another naughty hat site*.

    I never knew this.

  • Jambe

    https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=john+walker

    RPS is #14, botherer.org #16. Nice considering the generic name.

    I share your pain, being a Jeff Bates. *sigh* It seems doubtful to me that I’ll ever enter into parenthood but if I did, I like to think I’d bestow interesting or at least unique names. I don’t think I’d go so far as Dweezil or Moon Unit or Diva Thin Muffin Pigeen… perhaps, though. Perhaps.

    A quick, funny gallimaufry of a Doings, this one. I liked it.

  • devlocke

    For the record, I just googled John Walker and you didn’t pop up until the 7th page, and even then, it was just a link to an articled titled “knowingly ultracrepidarious” on RPS.

    Maybe the region you’re searching from matters?

  • John Walker

    Perhaps it is a region thing – I turn up 6th on the first page here.

  • Daniel Rivas

    My twitter has started turning up on the first page of google, which is distressing. I quite enjoyed being able to use my real name while remaining basically anonymous, due to all the Tex Mex singers and a trillion South Americans.

  • Thants

    I think Google may be doing some sort of dynamic, per-person sorting nowadays. For instance, botherer.org shows up on the first page now when I search for “John Walker”.

  • Jambe

    It is a region thing, i.e. google.co.uk is different from google.com. I’m not sure whether google.com automatically spits out .co.uk results if it’s accessed from the UK, but it seems likely.

    Also, iirc, Google uses your past searches to cater results to some degree. I’m not sure how this is divvied up between the site’s standard cookie framework and the more involved user account system, though (if it is at all).

    I linked to the SSL version of Google’s search on purpose, because it should produce the same result everywhere.

  • Kirrus

    The SSL version will still personalise your results, if you’re logged in they watch what search things you click on, and use that the provide the most relevant results to you.. clever stuff!

  • Alex

    I don’t know about the writing guilds in the UK, but in the States, no two people in the WGA are allowed to have the same. This leads to a lot of middle initials being used or made up. David Cohen, for example, used an S when working for the Simpsons, but when cartoons started being viewed as having ‘writers’ by the WGA, he had to switch over to an X.

  • Wrong Un

    I think your criticism of Russel T. Davies is quite unjustified. He is only documenting a provable fact, that people who are in any kind of minority have magical/ psychic/ sheer nobility of spirit style powers. Which they choose not to exercise for the betterment of everyone because they are all selfish shits.

  • mister k

    While I’m not going to attempt to defend T Davies writing style too strongly, I think you’re a little unfair to him on his treatment of homosexuality. I actually enjoy a science fiction which has homosexuality treated casually in the future, and long for more shows to do this, because its what I hope will happen in the future. The magical negro trope is just inexcusable, however.

  • Nick Mailer

    mister k: You miss the point a little – it’s not that T Davies includes future homosexuality “casually” in the future. It’s the hamfisted, on-the-nose, self-satisfied un-casual way he does it. The tockenistic lack of subtlety was only matched by his anti-American episode.

  • John Walker

    As Nick says, if only it were casual. But rather he announces it so loudly, like he’s grabbing you by both cheeks, putting his face a centimetre away from yours, and then screaming, “I’LL JUST ASK MY ***HUSBAND***”.

  • mister k

    I get the point, I just don’t agree that its as hamfisted as you claim it is.

  • Mister k

    To expand somewhat, context matters. Dr who is a mainstream media product in an environment where homosexuality is either nonexistent our something fraught with conflict for that character. so to have a franchise which treats homosexuality as something normal is great, even if is awfully clunky. Compare to moffat, under whom homosexuals have disappeared. If he has a flaw as a writer I would say it is to be rather heteronormarive: see coupling.

  • Hidden_7

    John, I feel you’ve missed THE most definitively silly bit about the whole cat mustache puzzle. As described it’s and overly complex and roundabout way to solve a problem. It only enters into the realm of pure nonsense when you note that the person you are trying to disguise as DOESN’T have a mustache. You need to both manufacture yourself one, and ALSO draw one on the picture in the ID. Because I guess all disguises need mustaches? I’m not even sure what fevered logic was going on in that one.

  • Daniel Rivas

    It’s the TV equivalent of someone stopping a conversation every five minutes to tell you they’re “totally okay with it”.

  • Daniel Rivas

    Also, Mister k: Sherlock is gay, isn’t he? I haven’t seen the Moffat Doctor Who.

  • mister k

    Sherlock is very much asexual, as befits the character- same (pretty much) with Moffat’s Doctor. They are not characters who are designed for romantic entanglement. If they must have a romance it should be slow and subtle, a la roslin+adama. Another problem with Davies, who made the Doctor rather too sexual. While the slow burning subtleties of Rose+Ecclestone mostly worked, including the fantastic conclusion, Tennant and Rose most certainly did not.

  • Daniel Rivas

    I was sure that was the implication from an establishing scene in the first episode, in a cafĂ©… Never mind. Maybe I was just projecting.

    (And I’ll link to this, of course, because it’s funny. GAY WATSON! http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=264)

    In any case, I maintain that Russ T is about as ‘casual’ about sexuality as a right-on thirteen year old.

  • Nick Mailer

    Exactly, Mr Rivas.

  • Edgar the Peaceful

    I thought The Trip was excellent. Unusually slow, rather thoughtful, and of course silly:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjZ_Mmjs3bc

    Beautiful countryside too.

  • mister k

    Well, maybe Sherlock is gay, but it hardly informs the character in any meaningful way. He’s not a sexual being, and damn right too. I’m not going to press my point on Davies, because I don’t really like his writing, but I just think on homosexuality, despite the ham fisted nature, at least he’s trying where other writers don’t even think about it.

  • Daniel Rivas

    I liked The Trip too, though I missed the last episode. By the end it seemed to be as melancholic as it was comedic—the Coogan character’s shouting “A-ha!” into the valley was heartbreaking, and his man in a box in the bathroom was similarly tragic.

    And there were lots of good “ooh, I’ve been there” moments, as well.

  • Xercies

    @mister k

    I’ve heard from a source that Russell T Davies will would only hire gay or gay liking writers for the Doctor Who tie in books and there must have at least a few gay characters in the books otherwise the writer was out. Don’t know how true that was but it doesn’t seem all that far fetched.

  • MrsTrellis

    I went to uni in Hull where we had a 5p flat fee dial up which I vaguely recall using to talk to lesbians on IRC and looking at pictures of Morrissey.

    Being called “John” is like being called “admin.”

    Whilst I hate the hamfisted gay references in RTD’s stuff, at the back of my mind I wonder, do we see them as hamfisted and laboured because they are, or because our brains stumble across them? It is not quite yet commonplace and RTD is just trying to portray a world where it is.

    Or alternatively it could be that it wouldn’t clang so irritatingly in the hands of a more competent writer, I dunno.

  • Thants

    I think Stargate Universe does a better job of having a gay character without it being a big deal.

  • Daniel Rivas

    There’s a risk of thinking the only good gay is one you can’t tell is queer, but Davies goes much too far in the other direction.

    Speaking of sexy gay Doctor Who, did anyone see Matt Smith as Christopher Isherwood? Again, adequate bumming.

    And obviously the gayest show on television is Spartacus: Blood on the Sand.

  • Urthman

    John, for someone who “discovered” the Cat Hair Moustache puzzle, you seem to have forgotten quite a few of the insane details.

    Honey is used to stick the cat hair to your lip, but get the hair in the first place by placing a piece of tape on a hole the cat is then chased through. Tape that somehow is able to rip a huge chunk of hair off that cat.