John Walker's Electronic House

Warning: whinging.

For the longest time I’ve assumed that Citylink are the worst delivery company in Britain. But Yodel are looking like real contenders for the title. While almost all delivery companies are obtuse, unhelpful, and make resolving issues as difficult as possible, none compare to the heavy iron walls that surround Yodel.

I have a delivery due, it was meant to arrive some time last week. On Friday I dared to leave the house for an hour, and of course they attempted to deliver then – clearly not their fault. I received a card through the door (thus immediately giving them an advantage over Citylink, you could argue), which had been filled in to tell me it was the “1st of 3 attempts”. I should turn over the card for more details – this instruction had been hand-ticked twice.

The back of the card was completely unmarked. No offer to reattempt to deliver was ticked, nor was the suggestion that I’d need to collect it from their delivery office. So, er, great.

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Episode 124 of Rum Doings sees us getting into a Christmas mood with, er, a bottle of Bacardi Breezer. Taking Christmassy questions from Twitter, we begin by discussing favourite Christmas presents (Nick’s is of course a videogame), and then divert off onto John’s late grandmother and her lying ways. Nostalgia sweeps over both of us, before diverting yet again toward Harry Enfield, and his Question Time sketch.

We solve so many of your problems, work out what a secret Santa present should be, and make rulings on whether murder is okay.

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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/124_rumdoings.mp3]

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.

We’d really love it if you left a review on iTunes. Yes, iTunes is hideous, but reviews on there are what get podcasts more attention. After 100 free episodes, we’d love you to return the favour by writing a quick review.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. 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.

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Or you can listen to it right here:

[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/123_rumdoings.mp3]

As was likely, after I wrote my piece on Paul’s thoughts on women in the church, and the twisting of those words to oppress women for millennia since, a few people have suggested some possible errors. I want nothing less than to spread any misinformation, so wanted to update with things I’ve learned since. The rather crucial thing to know is: the facts remain the case. The arguments against women in leadership in the church remain, as I said, theological rubbish.

I should also add that I’m not a scholar. I’m a games journalist. I do have a (first class!) degree in Youth, Community Work & Applied Theology, and while it taught me some basics, it wasn’t exactly hardcore theological studies. I come to this as an amateur, relying on the works of experts, and as such will of course make mistakes, or at least not have learned enough so far.

Thing is: Paul was, unequivocally, in favour of women in leadership, and those who use his words to prevent this are deliberately perverting the clear and unambiguous message that’s prevalent in all of his writing. As I said before, you don’t need to worry about any Greek interpretation, or get into any arguments about the meanings of specific words, to reach this conclusion. Paul openly and deliberately refers to women as apostles, deacons, church leaders, and heads of families running churches. What’s interesting is that from further study, it seems Paul was even more overtly criticising misogynist oppression in the church than I’d ever realised.

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In a disgusting ignoring of the most precious rules, Rum Doings Episode 122 begins with our discussing the topic. At length. We understand if you’ll no longer be listening. This rather sets the tone for the episode, as we find ourselves mostly discussing Daily Mail stories, which is – in fairness – when our podcast is best. Nick also finally reads the second story from his internet primer book, which I can strongly recommend for those having trouble getting to sleep.

More Daily Mail, the lack of ladybishops, fond memories of Mary Whitehouse, and working out Sophie Borland news stories. If you have any suggestions, post them below.

We’d really love it if you left a review on iTunes. Yes, iTunes is hideous, but reviews on there are what get podcasts more attention. After 100 free episodes, we’d love you to return the favour by writing a quick review.

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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/122_rumdoings.mp3]

Update: After some questions and criticisms, I’ve studied more since writing the below, and have summarised it all here. However, please note that while some of the Greek interpretation has been updated in my later post, the core of what I have written here remains the case. See both posts for a better, overall picture.

The words of the bigoted and scared sing in my ears, as I listen to the arguments of those against female bishops in the Church Of England (CofE). And since writing that sentence, the vote is lost. Women will still not be recognised as equal in the church. While I’ve not been involved with a CofE church for around eight years now, instead a part of an Evangelical free church, I still feel a heavy weight when I listen to this institution toying with continuing one of its number of bigotries. This debate, ahead of the vote to see whether women were allowed to assume the role of bishoping, is a peculiar one to hear in 2012.

On one side were those arguing for equality for women, to let women hold the same roles in the church as men. On the other side were those arguing that women should be under the subjugation of men, that men are who God wants to be in charge, and that women do not hold the same rights as men within the Church Of England. It’s not too often that you get to hear an argument where such overt and proud bigotry is argued so openly and so shamelessly. But even that aside, what’s most frustrating about this discussion is that the argument made by one side – tonight’s winning side – is quite simply, and utterly demonstrably, entirely wrong. Factually wrong.

The argument is that the Bible tells us that women should not be allowed to lead a church, that men are to have authority over women. Bible quotes are given to demonstrate this, and indeed, pick up any modern English translation of the bible and there you will find those very phrases. You certainly can see why people might be wont to think it is not. The bigotry against women is not only passionately argued in our churches, but it appears to be written down in our bibles. But these translations might not be correct. This, I think, provides a reasonable understanding for why the ordinary church goer might think that this is at least what the bible says, whether or not they believe it is reasonable. But it is no excuse for the educated church leaders currently arguing against women’s equal rights.

Two verses are used most frequently in these arguments, at least by those who – thank goodness – don’t to try to wield the poetic imagery at the beginning of Genesis. They are (using the NIV version, because it’s universal, rather than preferable):

1 Timothy 2.12 – I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man.

1 Conrinthians 14.34 – Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says… It is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.

They seem pretty cut and dry, right? But neither appears to be what is written in the original Greek text. Both, I think, have been deliberately mistranslated in an effort to oppress women.

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There was a superb moment on US network MSNBC’s news/entertainment programme, The Rachel Maddow Show, this week, where Maddow delivered a polemic disabusing the conspiratorial position of Republicans and Republican commentators. It went like this:

The point she captures is so simple, and so obvious upon hearing – that so long as one half of political representation is obsessed with conspiracies, lies and misdirection, it entirely fails to serve the reality of the country it purports to represent. And this notion reflects directly onto how so many scandals are covered in the UK press, and by the government.

The BBC is not in crisis. That Newsnight failed to broadcast an investigation into Jimmy Savile is very problematic. Revealing the systematic failure to protect the vulnerable in hospitals, care homes, and indeed BBC premises, seems an important story that merits coverage. While Savile is dead, and thus his exposure was not going to protect anyone else from him, the systems he was able to exploit remain in place until highlighted. That there are now multiple enquiries taking place into how such abuse was possible is, I think, proof enough that the report at the very least merited further investigation, and not being spiked. And if there were internal cover-ups at the BBC, then it’s important this be exposed and dealt with.

That Newsnight then broadcast an interview with an individual claiming a senior Conservative politician had sexually abused him, without identifying the former politician, is not the BBC in crisis either. It’s a mistake. In light of the Savile story, Newsnight was in an odd position. They’re being loudly castigated for failing to report the actions of a dead child abuser, and now have testimonial about a live one. They had to be considering the reaction had they not reported this one as well. However, it’s pretty bewildering that with the situation being what it was, the reporter didn’t think to load a picture of the former MP in question on their phone and show it to the interviewee. I hope, as a result of all this, Newsnight will ensure reporters do some pretty basic checks in future. But the BBC is not in crisis. Newsnight’s in a mess, and some of it may be to do with any number of the layers of management on which the bloated corporation spends far too much of its money. But the BBC remains the most extraordinary broadcaster in the world.

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We’re back! It’s episode 121 of Rum Doings. With Nick too lazy to travel to Bath, still, we’re back online. But! Not on Skype! Using Mumble, as so many suggested, we have a much more natural conversation (although still not as good as the real thing). This week we don’t discuss whether Phillip Schofield should be in charge of solving all crime. Obviously we discuss the recent US election, and the consequences of it all for the Republican party. There’s also talk of Page 3, and the place boobies hold in our society. Breast feeding, Nuts and topless bathing are all places where you can see boobs, as we extensively explain.

There’s a brief discussion of the games journalism row of a couple of weeks back, and Nick inevitably tries to make everything much worse. And then we ponder the new arch bish, and the embarrassing position the Church Of England still takes on same sex couples. And that’s your lot.

We’d really love it if you left a review on iTunes. Yes, iTunes is hideous, but reviews on there are what get podcasts more attention. After 100 free episodes, we’d love you to return the favour by writing a quick review.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter @rumdoings. 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/121_rumdoings.mp3]

Below is a guest post from Robert Florence, comedian, RPS columnist, and author of the Eurogamer article at the centre of the scandal of the past couple of days.

Okay. I feel I have to say something about all this mess. It’s difficult to know what to say, and how to say it, because there are good people I don’t want to put under any more pressure. I’ll be brief.

First of all, I think it’s important to explain how my Eurogamer piece came to be. On Wednesday morning I sat down to write a column about that fascinating image of Geoff Keighley beside a table of snacks. When I opened up Twitter I saw that there were some games writers having an argument. Another games scene drama. This time it was about games journalists tweeting promotional hashtags to win prizes – something I think is wrong. I saw a parallel between games writers’ casual acceptance that they can happily take a role in these silly PR stunts and Keighley’s weird buffet. That was why those particular games writers, Dave Cook and Lauren Wainwright, were referenced in my column. On another day, it could have been another two games writers, another drama. But on Wednesday, unfortunately for many of us, Lauren Wainwright had made a public tweet about those gifted PS3s.

I want to clarify here that at no point in my column did I suggest that either Dave Cook or Lauren Wainwright were corrupt. Their public tweets were purely evidence that games writers rarely question what their relationship with PR should be. In Lauren’s case I made the point that her suggestion that it’s fine for a games writer to tweet a promotional hashtag for personal gain could make everything she tweets and writes suspect. I was saying – “Folks, be careful what you say. You might make yourself look bad.” There was nothing libellous in that column.

Yesterday, Eurogamer removed a section of my column. Tom Bramwell, my editor, is a good man. Believe me when I tell you that the 24 hours that followed the publication of my column were horrendous for Tom. In all my time writing for Eurogamer, Tom Bramwell has never asked me to change a word. Even when I wrote about Eurogamer’s acceptance of Booth Babes at the Eurogamer Expo, Tom Bramwell had my back. When Tom emailed me telling me that the column was going to be amended, that it HAD to be amended, you can believe that it wasn’t a decision he took lightly. I can’t share everything about my exchanges with Tom, but I ask that you don’t see him as a villain in this. His attempts to defend my position were, if anything, heroic.

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People like a fuss.

Clearly I’ve been provoking a lot of that fuss in having written frankly about the last two days’ activities, but things have gotten a touch out of hand. So…

First thing I want to make clear: My concern and the anger behind my two posts has not been based on the actions of one or two people, but on wide circles of the UK games journalist/PR industry and their behaviour in reaction to the events. The shock, disgust, flippancy, sarcasm and straw-manning that has been exhibited from so many who don’t want questions asked, don’t want certain behaviours challenged, and don’t want their boats rocked. It’s abysmal, and it’s what drove me to write about it.

This afternoon’s post was more immediately about Lauren Wainwright’s successful censoring of Robert Florence’s article, and my fury at a journalist who would seek to use legal threats to silence another. But further, it was once again about so many in the business leaping to defend her, throwing around unsubstantiated allegations of libel where there was none, and besmirching a journalist who asked awkward questions to defend another who deserved awkward questions to be asked of her. The cowardice implicit in this is like a plague in the industry, and it deserves to be called out.

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