Rum Doings Episode 64: Naughty Hats
by John Walker 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]
March 17th, 2011 on 14:39
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.
March 17th, 2011 on 19:02
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.
March 17th, 2011 on 21:42
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.
March 18th, 2011 on 02:10
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.
March 18th, 2011 on 05:39
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?
March 18th, 2011 on 07:54
Perhaps it is a region thing – I turn up 6th on the first page here.
March 18th, 2011 on 10:17
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.
March 18th, 2011 on 10:25
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”.
March 18th, 2011 on 10:49
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.
March 18th, 2011 on 16:10
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!
March 19th, 2011 on 00:42
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.
March 19th, 2011 on 01:32
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.
March 20th, 2011 on 11:26
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.
March 20th, 2011 on 15:59
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.
March 20th, 2011 on 20:27
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***”.
March 20th, 2011 on 21:55
I get the point, I just don’t agree that its as hamfisted as you claim it is.
March 20th, 2011 on 22:22
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.
March 21st, 2011 on 11:46
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.
March 21st, 2011 on 14:03
It’s the TV equivalent of someone stopping a conversation every five minutes to tell you they’re “totally okay with it”.
March 21st, 2011 on 17:30
Also, Mister k: Sherlock is gay, isn’t he? I haven’t seen the Moffat Doctor Who.
March 21st, 2011 on 17:58
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.
March 21st, 2011 on 19:34
I was sure that was the implication from an establishing scene in the first episode, in a café… 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.
March 21st, 2011 on 22:12
Exactly, Mr Rivas.
March 21st, 2011 on 22:23
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.
March 21st, 2011 on 22:46
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.
March 21st, 2011 on 22:50
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.
March 23rd, 2011 on 13:51
@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.
March 23rd, 2011 on 21:02
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.
March 23rd, 2011 on 22:18
I think Stargate Universe does a better job of having a gay character without it being a big deal.
March 23rd, 2011 on 22:24
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.
April 5th, 2011 on 20:42
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.