Rum Doings Episode 107: Pink Green Absolution
by John Walker on May.18, 2012, under Rum Doings, The Rest
In Rum Doings 107, we begin by revealing not only how much this damned thing costs us, but an outbreak of sheer honesty. After plotting the demise of a clock, we return to your subjects about which you want us to be angry. Which kicks off with people who stop suddenly on pavements. HNGH!
We establish the rules on looking into people’s windows, spilling things on shirts, and are cornered into discussing how cats are annoying. Is saying “sigh” acceptable? How severely should we punish prestige car drivers?
Nick gets awfully cross about litter, and then when asked to be cross about American politics, we slightly miss target and rant about British and Ancient Roman politics. And some podcast recommendations:
Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History
99% Invisible
Also, to fill in people’s mental hole, here is a picture of Judge Coxcombe and Nicholas Mailer at John’s wedding:
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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/107_rumdoings.mp3]
May 19th, 2012 on 10:43
Nick looks exactly as I imagined him… 0.o
May 19th, 2012 on 11:50
Did they come straight from the Laurel and Hardy convention?
May 19th, 2012 on 17:00
If John dislikes Laura’s faux-aged clock so much, why does he have artificially aged wedding photographs?
May 19th, 2012 on 17:48
I aged it as an ironic appreciation of our garb and demeanour. To be fair, I was holding an actual super-8 film camera there, filming actual super-8 footage (not some instagramesque tossy emulation thereof).
May 19th, 2012 on 19:41
The Judge’s bow tie looks worryingly pre-tied. I hope I am mistaken.
Anyway, questions:
1. Shortly after Nick corrected John’s pronunciation of ‘Cicero’, he said ‘vice versa’. According to the same rule, shouldn’t it sound like ‘vika verka’?
2. John said that Nick could decide his bedtime because he was “older than me”. Is ‘older than I’ the right way to phrase it, or have I been hyper-correcting the entire time?
Loved the podcast, excellent as ever. For what it’s worth, I hated the ‘ha ha we are recording this right now and definitely didn’t do three at once’ jokes. Glad you’ve decided to drop them.
May 19th, 2012 on 19:48
Such dapper and handsome fellows! I had pictured Nick and Judge Coxcombe to look more disheveled and…crumbly. Because in one podcast John pointed out the crumbs under Nick’s chair, and Judge Coxcombe said that his desk looks like that, too. I’m not sure if that was the episode in which John spilled his coffee everywhere, but that could explain the sepia tint in the photo.
(This is a very silly and useless comment, but I hope it makes you happy.)
May 19th, 2012 on 20:01
I forgot to mention that I’m in the middle of listening to and enjoying an episode of the Hardcore History podcast. I want to check out the invisible one, too, if I can find where I saved the download. Hm. Anyway, thanks for the recommendations!
Do the other listener(s) have any recommendations for cozy, comfortable, non-strident listening? The topic doesn’t matter as much as the overall sound/feeling.
May 19th, 2012 on 21:42
George:
“1. Shortly after Nick corrected John’s pronunciation of ‘Cicero’, he said ‘vice versa’. According to the same rule, shouldn’t it sound like ‘vika versa’?”
Well, it’s worse than that. The ancient Romans pronounced the V more like a W. So it would sound something like “weekay wersaa”. But vice versa is now an English phrase, and that’s how we pronounce it – in the same way that we say “video recorder” and not “weedayo”, which is closer to how one would say “I see” in Latin.
“2. John said that Nick could decide his bedtime because he was “older than me”. Is ‘older than I’ the right way to phrase it, or have I been hyper-correcting the entire time?”
No. You have been accurate, as can easily be noted if you just complete the sentence thus:
“.. because he is older than I am”. It’s obviously not “.. because he is older than me am”.
May 20th, 2012 on 07:10
Excellent, thank you very much. :)
May 20th, 2012 on 17:23
Judge Coxcombe’s hat does far more to sell the olde-timey feel of the photograph than the sepia overlay ever could.
Give him some stubble and a crooked grin, and I could see him in some silent-era caper film.
May 21st, 2012 on 08:13
Is there actually any debate these days as to whether net curtains are the devil’s furnishings? Seems like an open and shut case to me.
Really pleased to hear your recommendation for 99% invisible. It’s a really terrific podcast that I stumbled onto a while back via TAL. Definitely worth checking out. Oh and MBMBAM is fantastic so thanks for the previous recommendation. I’m working my way through back episodes at the moment and would suggest number 40 as a great place to start for any other newcomers.
The only recommendation I can offer in return if you’re into American politics is Left, Right and Centre from KCRW which has been a favourite for years.
May 22nd, 2012 on 10:29
To the person that claimed there were no pictures of Nick to be found on the internet, I have this to say:
Are you incapable of using Google or any other search engine? I have been listening to this podcast since its birth and I found pictures of Mr.Mailer almost a year ago.
Also, I was a tad surprised the topic of ancient Roman politics was not spawned from my email to Rum Doings. It was about that very topic, more or less.
May 22nd, 2012 on 11:27
@Steve Eustice
*nice* net curtains are perfectly okay. It’s the shoddy five-pounds-from-Ikea ones everyone has that are the problem.
May 23rd, 2012 on 05:18
Bow ties? Can we not all agree that they are silly-looking? Some aesthetic sensibilities should cross cultures and oceans and that is one of them. Tradition be damned.
Delivering pizza for a year or two in the mid-aughts in Richmond (VA/US), I never had issues with BMW drivers or Audi drivers. Inevitably, when someone did something stupid or obnoxious, they were driving an Acura. Do you guys have Acuras there, or is that a North American-only brand? Also, are your car-prices a lot higher than ours? I have this conception of how much a BMW costs that runs from $40k to $60k, on average. 80k pounds is like $160k, which is well outside of the range I consider proper for cars that you don’t have to be on a waiting list for a year ahead of time to purchase, but you seemed to imply that it was the upper-range of a normal fancy-car in the UK.
People who drive slower than the speed limit in cars that are extremely expensive because they go fast drive me crazy. Being stuck behind a Ferrari that is travelling well under the speed limit drives me to distraction; why buy THAT car if you’re not going to at least travel as fast as is legal?
May 23rd, 2012 on 06:48
Great episode chaps. In fact Rum Doings kept me doing university work right through the night to meet a deadline. You provide a valuable service and it’s humbling to know each one costs about £25. Really, thank you!
May 23rd, 2012 on 11:02
@snacks: you may care to try Answer Me This, which is slightly more potty mouthed, but similarly British in its sensibilities and really rather funny.
Is there anyway of leaving a review on iTunes that doesn’t involve the actual software? I’d be delighted to write a review but I’m not letting the iTunes installer anywhere near my system for any reason, I’m afraid :(
May 23rd, 2012 on 22:41
@Jams I can’t think of a more egregious contradiction in terms than “nice net curtains”. Very rarely have I felt the need to partially obscure the unrelenting London sunshine streaking theough my windows or been too lazy to close the blinds/curtains before jumping into a late night game of naked Wii Fit in a fully illuminated room. I’d rather protect my modesty by plastering the windows with Lib Dem campaign posters.
May 25th, 2012 on 12:03
Wow I experienced a little thrill of excitement when you read out my tweet.
May 26th, 2012 on 07:24
So can we make random donations to your paypal registered email address? Do you have one? Could you set up one? Excess funds could be given to a worthy charity (Gutter Rat Welfare Society or some such)if you insist.
Surely that, at least, would be acceptable…
Also – regarding pavement wars – I have come to the conclusion that some folks just don’t understand vectors.
They cannot calculate or extrapolate, and if they can it is usually all they can manage to do one at a time.
Presumambly they manage to drive a car by following the road rules which are set up in such a way to allow for vector blindness.
…well, it’s a theory…
I have just spent the best part of 5 minutes checking punctuation and grammar – I now give up.
May 27th, 2012 on 11:41
There clearly is only one charity the proceeds could go to… Though I seem to remember John got his PayPal blocked somehow…
June 1st, 2012 on 16:12
The other difference between a libertarian and an anarchist appears to be that libertarians don’t care for an individual’s right to travel and work wherever they choose. Never met a libertarian who believed in the free movement of labour, despite their confessed absolute faith in the market. Seems to go hand in hand with nationalism, for some reason that makes absolutely no logical sense.
June 1st, 2012 on 22:31
@Matt thanks for the podcast suggestion! I’ll give it a try.
June 7th, 2012 on 19:51
Just to come back and say that Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History is absolutely marvellous and thank you very much.