In a very special edition of Rum Doings, we are joined by comedy writer John Finnemore. We have discussed Mr Finnemore’s work on Rum Doings in the past, especially the fantastic Radio 4 sitcom Cabin Pressure. He’s worked on very many radio and television comedies, perhaps most notably as a lead writer for Mitchell & Webb on both Radio 4 and BBC 2, and despite this still agreed to join us for our twentieth episode.

There’s a topic not under discussion this week too: how are we going to inoculate ourselves against Britain’s road rage epidemic.

You’ll not be surprised to learn much of the topics this week are radio and TV comedy – subjects we’ve spoken about a great deal before. We begin with Cabin Pressure, and quickly move on to the sitcoms that inspired Finnemore, especially Yes Minister. Then find out which surprising 70s sitcom David Mitchell is a fan of, as well as enjoy a brief dissection of The Fall And Rise Of Reginald Perrin. Nick attempts to get John W in trouble, telling tales about his disliking of Fawlty Towers, and then everything goes horribly wrong…

Finnemore defends Victoria Wood’s ‘dinnerladies’. Oh dear. It all falls apart. It almost comes to blows.

Fortunately we quickly move on to John Shuttleworth, good comedy we can all agree on. This takes us to Dad’s Army, which in turn brings us back to Cabin Pressure, especially the desert episode and the fantastic appearance of John Sessions. Nick then launches into a brilliant attempt to tell Finnemore that he’s wrong about the nature of one of his own characters – one he even voices himself. This leads to a lovely discussion of the nature of happiness, as viewed through the Goons.

After more discussion of Cabin Pressure, then talk of the relationship between The Mitchell & Webb Sound and Look, we arrive at the topic of comedians doing advertising. Then changing from commercials to the other side, there’s talk of why the BBC is such a great thing but so desperately lacking self-confidence.

Huge thanks to John Finnemore for joining us for our twentieth episode. We strongly recommend you get hold of Cabin Pressure. It’s a funny and warm radio sitcom of the like that’s very rare today. You can buy both series from Audible here and here, or from iTunes here and here. Oh, and we should probably add that you can hear Finnemore on this week’s episode of The Now Show, 6.30, Friday on Radio 4. Yes, we’re aware of the irony of this.

Do let other people know about this episode, by whichever means you think best. And writing a review on iTunes helps us a great deal. We’d appreciate it.

If you want to email us, 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.

Episode 19 is here. This week’s topic isn’t: Why are we English too ASHAMED to celebrate St. George’s Day with due dignity and respect, properly? Which is embarrassing to even type.

Things more realistically begin with an explanation of the spiteful nature of tea, pet names for pets, and that which we’ve changed from hating to liking. Find out what temperature we’ve decided will keep your babies alive, and how John disagrees with all baby-based wisdom, leading to Nick denying his daughter her wings.

Of course we talk about Mr Blobby, and Noel’s House Party, and the Late Late Breakfast Show. But you’d been expecting that. And find out who electrocuted an elephant to death. Hear Nick play the mouth-banjo. Don’t hear Nick tell his Oxford interview story. But do hear stories of examinations.

This takes us back to school days, remembering teachers good and bad, and times we went out of our way to get in trouble. And then, more positively, favourite teachers.

There’s a few things we ask for in return for this lovely gift. Could you retweet about it, demand people on forums have a listn, or find any other way to tell new people to listen? And writing a review on iTunes helps us a great deal. We’d appreciate it.

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.

In an unprecedented eighteenth episode of Rum Doings we don’t discuss what we will do on Earth about potholes. However, we do quite brilliantly demonstrate how to drink. And then immediately return to our favourite topic of recent times: ketchup. Via some quite astonishing observation comedy, of course. But we promise the ketchup talk is confined to only the beginning.

Then there’s happy stories of service experiences, which leads us to what will be remembered by history as the greatest series of “time” themed puns mankind has ever heard. And welcome to the new job title: the shorekeeper. Then there’s Nick’s racist t-shirt and his mule child.

Then it’s time for part two of The Rules, which those who didn’t want us to do any more will be pleased to learn completes the collection. Where we learn that all our listeners should all embrace death, because they can’t be bothered to promote us or write to us.

There’s a few things we ask for in return for this present. Could you retweet about it, or find a way to tell new people to listen? And writing a review on iTunes helps us a great deal. We’d appreciate it.

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.

In our seventeenth episode of Rum Doings we don’t ask the question: Who will diffuse Britain’s ticking immigration time-bomb? Instead we focus on more pressing matters: plum jam and ketchup.

Before we start, just to say, last week only one person bothered to retweet the Rum Doings new episode announcement. It’s all we ask listeners to do – just help us promote it. It’s pretty bloody sad when people can’t be bothered to do just that. So please, help out. Onto the episode…

We briefly recognise how awful the Simpsons is, before tucking into a glass of plum sake, and moving on to the dominant subject of the episode: Britain’s miserly distribution of tomato ketchup. This episode, recorded on Monday, refers to the harrowing events of the preceding Valentine’s Day. Along the way we explore the options for entertainment available at Cheddar Gorge for a remarkable bargain price!

When we finally get to the restaurant story you can enjoy Nick’s precise use of the word “niggardly“, and then join us in our celebration of British service culture.

This then moves on to the distribution of crisps on aeroplanes, volumes of tea, and a mysterious newspaper clipping from 1997.

There’s a few things we ask for in return for this present. Could you retweet about it, or find a way to tell new people to listen? And writing a review on iTunes helps us a great deal. We’d appreciate it.

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.

Hello. This would be episode 16 of Rum Doings. We’re not afraid to not discuss the subjects that aren’t topical, and such it is that we’re not discussing the true meaning of Christmas.

Instead we begin with a celebration of oat milk, whatever on Earth it might be. First the carton is dissected, and then the insides are consumed. Will we like it? Will we paw at our tongues?

Fond memories of the daily porridge man arise, before we knuckle down to this week’s theme: a discussion of The Rules. This causes conversation about how to pronounce clip-art, pause buttons at the cinema, cats drinking from toilets, boobies, the pleasure of being rained on, hole digging, Dick and Dom In Da Bungalow jokes, and John’s rather heartwarming rules for bravery.

Could you help out? There’s a few things we ask for in return for this present. Could you retweet about it, or find a way to tell new people to listen? And writing a review on iTunes helps us a great deal. We’d appreciate it.

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.

It’s the fifteenth episode. They said it would never last this long. This “they” being the people who knew we were going to try to drink Tesco Value W-hite Rum.

This week not under discussion is the matter: has the iPad lived up to the media hype? So instead we talk about John’s loss of nomenclature, and then almost kill ourselves with a frighteningly awful liquid.

This week’s episode is mostly dictated by the commands of one “Royston”, who left a comment on episode 13 in which he listed subjects he would like to hear discussed. Somehow missing his opening entry, “Wales”, we otherwise followed his instructions. Which were:

St Wilgefortis
Battlestar Galactica Action Figures
Sufjan Stevens
Favoured Condiments

Which pretty much sees us through. It leads us toward discussions of decaffeinated horrors and fishfingers, and that’s us done.

We’d love it if you passed this link on, told friends, recommended us in forum threads, pre-loaded it on mp3 players and then handed them out to all your family, and so on. Also, if you would, write us a review on horrible, horrible iTunes. That would be splendid.

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.

Persisting in this new weekly habit, Rum Doings Episode 14 certainly doesn’t discuss its chosen topic, What Should We Do About The Wheeliebin? It’s with troubling enthusiasm that we begin this latest episode, despite the blatant lack of rum in our hands. Your rules, we don’t play by them. This week our drink is, instead, honeybush tea.

Things we do talk about include the paradoxical anomaly that is BBC 1’s Outnumbered, why Russell Davies doesn’t deserve his “T”, the plot holes in Press Gang, obviousness in writing, and ask why can’t people enjoy their superpowers? There’s revelations of Michael Moore, and then of course the discussion we’ve all be expecting: who should be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then, at long last, Nick’s brief lecture on Derrida. Which is genuinely our most requested topic.

We’d love it if you passed this link on, told friends, recommended us in forum threads, graffitied the URL on the sides of houses, and so on. (Don’t actually graffiti the sides of houses.) Also, if you would, write us a review on horrible, horrible iTunes. That would be splendid.

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.

Sorry to sneak up on you, but look, it’s episode 13. We’re going weekly for, well, maybe a week. We’ll see how it works out. Please let us know in the comments below, or to podcast@rumdoings.com, whether you would prefer weekly episodes, or the former fortnightly.

Distracted by a new rum, we take a long time to get around to introducing the topic we’re not discussing: Whatever happened to sitting down for dinner as a whole family?

Instead we find ourselves discussing Scientology, random word snap, and then dive head-first into a chasm of self-indulgence, and discuss the Rum Doings origin story. How John and Nick met, the creation of (the now deceased) Glebe’s Thrift Funnel, and then our dalliance with the stars. As regular listeners will remember, Nick and John have a “no false modesty” rule, and included in this is what so many call “name-dropping”, but we call “talking about people we met.” We relate the stories of our adventures in the nineties in which we met many of our heroes.

Apologies for the slightly annoying hollow mic noise that appears occasionally. You’ll forgive us. Let us know what you enjoyed or didn’t enjoy, either via email or comment below. Or leave a review on iTunes. And please, as ever, retweet and plug this link, help us get heard. We want to be heard by the w-hole wide world.

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.

In our first Rum Doings of 2010, we don’t discuss whatever happened to Britain’s supplies of salt.

Enjoying a cocktail known as A Snowball For The Year 2000, we begin with an excellent description of Nick from a listener, that sets us off onto a discussion of alternative ways of pronouncing words, and the definition of “enormity”, and why using Windows is like being a tourist in Egypt.

Then, as was perhaps somewhat inevitable, there’s discussion of the weather. And weather forecasting. We’re enormously right. Moving on to thunderstorms, you’ll understand this brings us to discussing the Scouting movement. Which of course leads into a conversation about breakfast cereals. And Victoria Wood. And Armando Iannucci. And Chris Langham. Ending on a teaser for the next episode! We’re a serial drama.

Email us! About anything you like. Who knows, in about two months we may read it on the podcast.

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.

As ever, we depend on you to promote this. Please, take the time to retweet it, tell friends, or post about it on forums, that sort of thing. Ooh, and write us a review on iTunes. That sort of thing is very helpful. Go on. For the children.

Opening with a terrifying clatter of the microphone, the matter not under discussion this week is: Is it the end of the great British pub? More immediately discussed is the tragedy of the Lost Rum Doings. Inevitably going down in legend, an entire episode of Rum Doings was lost to the cruel twist of Audacity’s crashing, causing us to immediately begin another to replace it.

And you know what – thank goodness. Because the result is the most positive episode of Rum Doings that will likely ever exist. It’s a celebration of things that we like.

John likes the banality and idiocy of Eggheads. While Nick likes well cooked chips. (John rather stupidly refers to Golden Wonder potatoes as “Golden Delicious” – please forgive him this.) Then there’s crazy golf, fontanelles, warm coffee shops, hypno-running, Chicago, Radio 3, how Rum Doings saves lives, chicken, leaves of privet hedges, the Brandenburg Concerto, and others.

Oh, and email us! Tell us why you listen, and whether you’re one of our non-gamer listeners. Or leave a comment below. We need to know. For science. And if you’re a female cellist of course.

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.

As ever, we depend on you to promote this. Please, take the time to retweet it, tell friends, or post about it on forums, that sort of thing. And please actually do that. You, we mean. Yes, you, because you never bother, and it would be so little effort.