John Walker's Electronic House

Episode 115 of Rum Doings is a very, very late episode, recorded while the Olympics were still on. Nick then took a week to send his files to John, then John took a week to put them online. We are both rubbish, and we apologise. But fortunately, it’s a top-notch episode, despite being recorded on Skype with the line dropping very near the end. No, really, it’s still good!

Highlights include the renaming of John’s wife, the discovery of the Kitchen Fairy, and Nick lying about visiting Bath. We watch sunsets on Mars, John has actually been running, and we express our surprise at just how good the Olympics were.

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[audio: http://rumdoings.jellycast.com/files/audio/115_rumdoings.mp3]

If you don’t care about videogame websites, move along at this point. I don’t want to bore you. Really, this is mostly aimed at the Polygon team, in the hope that they’ll understand why their trailer for their documentary is not being well received. The entire team seems utterly bemused as to why not just readers but the wider games press is having such an adverse reaction to the two trailers that have been put out so far, and I want to explain it. Here are the two trailers:

[Wordpress broke everything]

Let me stress something from the start. I’ve met a few of the Polygon team, and they seemed lovely. I also happen to be a big fan of the McElroy brothers’ podcast, and as such have a lot of respect for how funny they are. I have nothing personal against any of them, and I want Polygon to be a site that produces fantastic content that I want to read, and becomes a huge success because of it. I’m writing this because I feel like reality has broken down a little, and I want to put the bricks back in place.

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I have always been very separate from nationalistic sporting support. Not because I’m some extremist leftie who thinks it’s some arch and oh-so-look-at-me thing to think, but because my brain just doesn’t get it. Arbitrary dotted lines on a round, round globe don’t logically differentiate humanity in ways that make me think I should want one of them to win at something more than another. The only rationale I could think of for picking an entire nation and wanting it to win would be based on some measure of national merit, and therefore I think there would be a few other countries that would come top of my list over the UK. Mere proximity to an athlete or team, no matter what cultural aspects I may happen to share, has never made sense for me as a means to care.

I’m also aware that sport is way more fun to watch if there’s one team you want to win more than the other. Baseball has long been the only sport that I’ve really engaged with, and I’ve relatively arbitrarily picked a National League and American League team to support. Investing in a team makes the process far more entertaining.

And so, with the Olympics happening in London, I find myself falling between these two fences.

I tend to describe myself as someone who doesn’t care about sport. But I think what I mean by that is that I don’t care about football, nor cricket, rugby or tennis. And since that’s all that’s ever shown on TV here, it pretty much rules out any active interest in the whole affair. I also thought I had no interest in the Olympics – I was very much hoping that Paris would win the bid, simply so we wouldn’t have the fuss, hassle, expense and noise it would inevitably bring. I was not looking forward to the inevitable massive expense, the endless, tedious media coverage of the build up to the event, nor the all-encompassing noise of it all throughout.

Then I watched the opening ceremony.

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In a surprise early episode 114 of Rum Doings, Nick and John record an episode while the events of the weekend are fresh in their minds. Nick attended the Olympic opening ceremony, and has quite a bit to say on the Britain it portrayed. While John wrote a blog post (below) that rather a lot of people looked at. We discuss them both, entirely forgetting to have a topic not to talk about.

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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/114_rumdoings.mp3]

UPDATE UPDATE: The Mail has pulled the article entirely now. The link to it now just reaches an error page. But you can read the article in full via the links a few lines below, and via FreezePage here.

UPDATE: That was quick. About five minutes after I posted, the Mail’s story was ninja edited, without acknowledgement, to remove the most outrageously racist lines. Where once it read:

“This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England but it is likely to be a challenge for the organisers to find an educated white middle-aged mother and black father living together with a happy family in such a set-up.

Almost, if not every, shot in the next sequence included an ethnic minority performer. The BBC presenter Hazel Irvine gushed about the importance of grime music (a form of awful electronic music popular among black youths) to east London. This multicultural equality agenda was so staged it was painful to watch.”

It now reads:

“This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England but such set-ups are simply not the ‘norm’ in any part of the country. So why was it portrayed like this and given such prominence? If it was intended to be something that we can celebrate, that two people with different colour skin and different cultural heritages can live harmoniously together, then it deserves praise.

But what will be disturbing to many people is top-down political manipulation – whether consciously or unthinkingly – at a major sporting event.”

It’s the most extraordinary change to the text, completely reversing the meaning the author originally intended, and completely incongruous to the paragraphs either side of it, which still endorse Aidan Burley’s “leftie multicultural crap” tweet.

You can see scans of the original article, before these changes were made, here: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Original: I am very aware that getting cross with Daily Mail articles is like shouting about how the sun can be hot. However, my motivation is not to cry, “How dare they!”, but instead to say, “Please understand that they do.” I still meet many people who do not understand how the Daily Mail is not just another tabloid, not just as bad as the rest of them, but instead something far more despicable and dangerous. It’s one of the most popular papers in Britain, and when we say, “Just ignore it – they’re just trying to get hits,” I shudder. We do not ignore evil – we challenge it and get angry about it. We make more people aware. Some people reading won’t have realised. And others can maybe point someone this way when they ask what they’re getting so worked up about.

The particular piece that’s riled me this evening is elegantly titled, “The NHS did not deserve to be so disgracefully glorified in this bonanza of left-wing propaganda“. That the Mail would write a piece arguing that the NHS is a bad thing, and should have had no part in the Olympic opening ceremony, is not a surprise. They’re a vicious and spiteful paper, and their agenda against the poor and needy is over a hundred years old. The NHS is the antithesis of everything they stand for, a socialist blight on our nation they’d rather do without. And while there are a thousand reasons to get cross about that, it’s not the issue with this piece. The issue is what’s smuggled in there.

(continue reading…)

Fresh as the morning dew, episode 113 of Rum Doings was recorded only moments ago. John with a cold, Nick with a smoke up his nose, we don’t discuss whether extended Twitter downtime will affect the Olympics. But we do discuss the potential for the opening ceremony, to which Nicholas shall attend. We question whether there should be a paralympics at all, and then move onto the strangeness of Mitt Romney.

Is gaming moving to Linux? We don’t actually discuss that, but Nick does explain just what a disaster Windows 8 is going to be. We wonder how Sorkin’s The Newsroom could be better, and then decide to get rid of wee-wees and poo-poos. Would you jump into a volcano? Would you watch White Collar? Would you be a Scottish Catholic?

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/113_rumdoings.mp3]

Goodness, it’s been a while. But finally, Rum Doings returns with episode 112, not asking what ambulances are going to do now there are Olympic lanes. It’s a Skype episode, but we seem to have the sound pretty well fixed now, so apart from even more talking over each other than usual it’s one heck of a step up from the terrible echoes of the last couple.

Although there wasn’t even a plan to record at all on this evening, as John was supposed to be having a romantic night away in a hotel. As you might expect, why he’s not there is the first matter discussed. How do you escape from a hotel? We then move on to plugging Nick’s brother’s book, The Fastest Loser, which you should buy.

There’s brief chat about the Google Nexus and Raspberry Pi, and Ouya, before we move onto more important matters – the details of the Farmborough W.I. July meeting. There’s more news from our new favourite paper, the Midsomer Norton, Radstock and District Journal, including a footpath we must save, and a lady who wants to set our heads on fire.

We look at the Onion’s extraordinary response to the Daniel Tosh rape joke furore. A quick glance at the banks leads on to Nick’s obsessive, dangerous stalking of Ben Goldacre.

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/112_rumdoings.mp3]

Bum dum Rum Doings episode 111! Back in our echo chamber, at the bottom of a giant well made of metal, we try to read out an email but then get distracted by everything. Nick apparently wants to “fix” Laura, and then John gets angry with a man. We dismiss the BMI, tell Money Supermarket to go away, and then finally read the email. About someone setting their house on fire because of Rum Doings. A bit.

It gets boring for a while, then we talk about how people are precious over dead bodies, and why John wants to be eaten by sharks. Did you know that baby cells live inside mummies? Probably if you listen to Radio Lab. But we talk about it inexpertly with some of the facts wrong. It turns out Nick’s daughter gets violent when her grammar is corrected, giraffes are tall, and Microsoft doesn’t have a brain in its tail.

Please leave a review on iTunes. We hate iTunes as much as any other sentient individual, but reviews on there are what get podcasts promoted, and we’d love some promotion. After 100 free episodes, we’d love you to pay us back 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/111_rumdoings.mp3]

Welcome to a very echoey episode, Rum Doings 110. Trapped in the attic of Nick’s evil enterprise, the acoustics match the décor, as we begin as banally as possible by discussing the weather. Then we swiftly leap to poking tubes through all of Nick’s holes.

We question the usefulness of our eyes, and Nick banishes all discussion of free will. John then shares his quiz show schadenfreude, Nick dares to question the Anglican church, and we voice how impressed we are at how the government responds to Leveson. Jigsaws are briefly mentioned before moving on to pointing out how women can’t really do science. There’s a short eulogy to Nick’s cat, Minnie, and then it ends.

Please leave a review on iTunes. We hate iTunes as much as any other sentient individual, but reviews on there are what get podcasts promoted, and we’d love some promotion. After 100 free episodes, we’d love you to pay us back 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/110_rumdoings.mp3]

Something terrible has happened. Nick has recorded an episode of Rum Doings with Judge Coxcombe, but not John, seemingly on a wax cylinder in a wind tunnel. What manner of madness is this?! And why are they sat beside the Mediterranean without him? (Well, because he turned down the invitation because the flights cost too much.)

But, despite this despicable action, this is indeed Rum Doings Episode 109, in which it’s not discussed whether John will be annoyed by the recording of this episode without him. HE’S FINE. Sipping pudding wine, they discuss bathing together, then as flipping usual Nick brings up videogames. Instructing Judge Coxcombe to judge the show as experienced from Spain, they explore the concept of this “music”, and then predict the future of gaming.

Europe is explained in the simplest form – a cream egg – and then the pair move on to gay politicians. And they get run over by a tractor. And finally, what should Gordon Brown do next?

Please leave a review on iTunes. We hate iTunes as much as any other sentient individual, but reviews on there are what get podcasts promoted, and we’d love some promotion. After 100 free episodes, we’d love you to pay us back 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/109_rumdoings.mp3]