John Walker's Electronic House

Rum Doings Episode 123: I Want To Congratulate You On The Excellent Customer Service You’re Giving And The Ambiance You Portray

by on Dec.07, 2012, under Rum Doings

In episode 123 of Rum Doings, Nick and John don’t discuss the nightmare of nightmare neighbours. But they do concentrate on important discussions such as the rhyming nature of the alphabet, Laura’s fleeing John to Germany, and why ladies are only allowed to address Bristol University CU when accompanied by their husband.

We discover just how angelic blind people are, according to the Big Bumper Book Of Facts, explore Starbucks’ finances, and tell 14th century jokes.

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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/123_rumdoings.mp3]
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18 Comments for this entry

  • Jens Aggergren

    So being Danish I just had to look up that video clip you mentioned. The MEP which so effectively put down your UKIP MEP is apparently belgian, not danish. His name is Guy Verhofstadt.

    http://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2012/12/05/nigel-farage-got-completely-destroyed-in-this-eu-debate/

    Anyway, thanks for another great podcast.

  • Nick Mailer

    John thinks you all sound the same.

  • Wednesday

    Numtums, numtums, numtums…

  • John Walker

    Someone told me it was a Danish MEP! I trusted them. And didn’t pay close enough attention to his accent.

  • Jens

    Heh, no worries. I was totally ready to believe that a Danish MEP had dealt someone a verbal spanking during a parliamentary session. But alas no, that honour goes to the Belgians (insert witticism about Belgians here).
    For future reference, this is what a danish accent sounds like (this is our current minister for foreign affairs):

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0HWlWKMIck

  • James

    Listening now, so I’ve not heard everything, but I’m pretty sure UCCF doesn’t have a blanket policy of forbidding women speakers. If they do it’s come in within the last ten years.

    When I was a student in Bradford, the UCCF staff worker, employed by UCCF to support several CUs across the region, and who probably taught more than any other speaker during my time there, was a single woman. It’s possible she was overstepping the bounds the national organisation gave her, and I have had the impression that Bradford CU has become somewhat more conservative since my time there, but my impression was that UCCF generally tried to avoid anything to controversial. Within a given definition, of course, as homophobia doesn’t seem at all controversial when you live your life within a self-affirming bubble to which admittance is regulated by willingness to sign a doctrinal statement.

  • James

    A little bit further in, have you seen one of the other reasons to boycott Starbucks? http://www.dumpstarbucks.com

    Was fairly appalled to see one of my friends sharing that on Facebook the other day.

  • George

    Haven’t listened yet, will do so when making dinner tonight. Just wanted to say that UCCF has no policy regarding women speakers – see http://www.uccf.org.uk/student/news/uccf-statement-on-women-speaking-in-christian-unions.htm – and there are many women working in various positions within UCCF (our relay worker for the city is a lady from the church I go to).

    Our CU (Southampton) makes it very clear that we’re not a church, and that it is therefore not our place to make such decisions. General consensus among my friends – regardless of our individual opinions on the subject – is that it was stupid of BUCU to ever make a decision it had to right to make.

  • James

    I found the whole thing fairly disconcerting, as in my head BUCU stands for *Bradford* University Christian Union, a place where I met most of my Uni friends, and which had a hugely enriching impact on my life. But now you mention it, yes, I recall that the way it got round having to hold and opinion on women in leadership was by maintaining the obviously bullshit position that they weren’t a church, when in fact it was one of the best churches I’ve ever belonged to. From the perspective of it’s encouraging me in my faith, of course, rather than the perspective of it challenging any social norms.

    There was also a general tradition of appointing a male president and a female vice-president. I think they broke that while I was there though, and I think it was tradition rather than policy.

  • George

    I hardly think it’s ‘obviously bullshit’ to say that a CU is not a church. This may well be down to differences in the way our respective CUs are/were run, but SUCU definitely acts as a general meeting place for Christians of all denominations (there’s also a Catholic Society here, but a fair few Catholics go to both CU and CathSoc) whereas the various churches around the city are for people with specific views on secondary issues.

  • James

    I’m not really sure what the difference is between a meeting place and a church, especially when that meeting place, as ours did, includes everything you might associate with a church: worship, prayer, Bible study, cell groups, socialising, rotas, quiche, etc. Perhaps yours is different.

  • George

    Sorry, I’m using ‘church’ to mean a denomination e.g. baptist, Anglican, Catholic, presbyterian etc.

    So the CU is non-denominational and for the most part doesn’t deal with issues that different denominations might disagree on. (Also we don’t have quiche, which now that you mention it seems like something we should probably sort out.)

  • James

    So, what, in the non-Bristolian misogynist (er… sorry, complementarian) viewpoint, it’s only wrong for women to lead a meeting if everyone in it thinks the same way you do? That makes little or no sense.

    I mean, of course, the whole thing makes little or no sense, obviously. Why is it wrong for women to teach adults who can decide for themselves what to believe, but perfectly fine for them to teach children who might not know any better?

  • George

    Whoa, no, no no no. I think it’s perfectly ok for women to lead meetings, whether they be in a Christian Union or in a church on Sunday morning, and if someone disagrees then they’re welcome to attend a church that doesn’t allow female speakers. The point I’m trying to make is that if a CU member doesn’t think women should be able to speak, they should either deal with it or piss off, rather than trying to get CU policy changed (which apart from anything else would be a violation of the equality rules of just about every Student Union in the country). I suppose there’s also the option of setting up a rival CU of like-minded people, and I gather some universities have these (with different names to distinguish themselves), which have more specific views on subjects like gender roles, homosexuality, etc.

    To summarise: BUCU shouldn’t have made that decision because it’s a) bigoted, and b) outside the remit of what a CU should do.

    As to your last question: I’ve been asking that since I was a child, and have yet to receive a satisfactory answer.

    (I also just noticed a typo in the last line of my first comment – it should say “had no right to make”.)

  • James

    Oh, sorry, no, I wasn’t imagining you thought women shouldn’t be in leadership. Just that UCCF’s whole “we don’t take a position on these issues” stance appears to be predicated on their insistence that CUs aren’t churches, and thus can be led by women. Given that the scriptural prohibitions (and having finally just read John’s excellent posts on the subject, I’m glad to now have the tools to explain to others why that’s not what they are) relate entirely to meetings, it would seem illogical to say they actually refer to leadership over denominations.

  • George

    “Given that the scriptural prohibitions relate entirely to meetings, it would seem illogical to say they actually refer to leadership over denominations.”

    I’m not trying to say that different rules apply for different categories of meeting, I was trying to say that in a church there’s likely to be more of a general opinion on such a matter than in a CU, which is much more diverse. So the majority of people in a particular church might feel that women shouldn’t lead, and that church would then make an official decision regarding that. In a CU, whilst individuals (and individual committee members) may feel very strongly one way or another, there’s likely to be a fair mixture of views, so any official decision made by the committee would likely be going against the wishes of a significant percentage of the group.
    This may not be the reasoning behind UCCF’s decision, but in my conversations with fellow CU members it’s the impression I’ve got as to why they decided on a ‘non-policy’ policy.

    Apologies if this is all sounding a bit muddled, it sounded much clearer in my head. :)

  • Lasse

    yes, thanks for great podcast :-)

  • husband had affair

    Edward, the false conclusion is that you blame Manoyan of not being able to stop EU resolution and being socialist. Am I wrong? What are you bashing Monoyan for? What is your problem with socialism? Armenia is a socialist country and there is nothing bad in that.-Next, I haven’t linked patriotism with socialism so I don’t know what you are talking about.-As for the “The Dashnaks were once in power in Armenia & ended their reign with a treaty with the communists ending the First Armenian Republic. They also helped to power a party called young turks which did some bad things to Armenians.”Are you forgetting that Georgia and azerbaijan was Bolshevik at that time and the Armenian army didn’t fight because of some Armenian Bolshevik propaganda such as “turks are our brothers do not fight them”? You seem to forget the history and the facts. It seems some people like to blame the once who does something. Try to do something than criticize the others. Yes, patriotism means love to your country.-You ask “The only problem is HOW TO FIGHT THE TURKS THE MUSLIMS THE RUSSIANS THE JEWS with their billions of manpower & money resources. Can you tell me? and please be more specific. So far no one has given me any proper answer .” I don’t know why we should fight the Russians or the Jews. I don’t see any reason but to fight turks I would suggest doing what I have done in 90’s, go Artsaxh and fight against azeries. Fight can be in many forms, helping the Artsaxh economy if you are a businessman, fight in information field, fight by going and residing in Artsaxh and finally if a war sparks, than going and joining the Artsaxh army.Finally, please stay on the subject.