John Walker's Electronic House

Persisting in this new weekly habit, Rum Doings Episode 14 certainly doesn’t discuss its chosen topic, What Should We Do About The Wheeliebin? It’s with troubling enthusiasm that we begin this latest episode, despite the blatant lack of rum in our hands. Your rules, we don’t play by them. This week our drink is, instead, honeybush tea.

Things we do talk about include the paradoxical anomaly that is BBC 1’s Outnumbered, why Russell Davies doesn’t deserve his “T”, the plot holes in Press Gang, obviousness in writing, and ask why can’t people enjoy their superpowers? There’s revelations of Michael Moore, and then of course the discussion we’ve all be expecting: who should be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then, at long last, Nick’s brief lecture on Derrida. Which is genuinely our most requested topic.

We’d love it if you passed this link on, told friends, recommended us in forum threads, graffitied the URL on the sides of houses, and so on. (Don’t actually graffiti the sides of houses.) Also, if you would, write us a review on horrible, horrible iTunes. That would be splendid.

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.

Sorry to sneak up on you, but look, it’s episode 13. We’re going weekly for, well, maybe a week. We’ll see how it works out. Please let us know in the comments below, or to podcast@rumdoings.com, whether you would prefer weekly episodes, or the former fortnightly.

Distracted by a new rum, we take a long time to get around to introducing the topic we’re not discussing: Whatever happened to sitting down for dinner as a whole family?

Instead we find ourselves discussing Scientology, random word snap, and then dive head-first into a chasm of self-indulgence, and discuss the Rum Doings origin story. How John and Nick met, the creation of (the now deceased) Glebe’s Thrift Funnel, and then our dalliance with the stars. As regular listeners will remember, Nick and John have a “no false modesty” rule, and included in this is what so many call “name-dropping”, but we call “talking about people we met.” We relate the stories of our adventures in the nineties in which we met many of our heroes.

Apologies for the slightly annoying hollow mic noise that appears occasionally. You’ll forgive us. Let us know what you enjoyed or didn’t enjoy, either via email or comment below. Or leave a review on iTunes. And please, as ever, retweet and plug this link, help us get heard. We want to be heard by the w-hole wide world.

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.

In our first Rum Doings of 2010, we don’t discuss whatever happened to Britain’s supplies of salt.

Enjoying a cocktail known as A Snowball For The Year 2000, we begin with an excellent description of Nick from a listener, that sets us off onto a discussion of alternative ways of pronouncing words, and the definition of “enormity”, and why using Windows is like being a tourist in Egypt.

Then, as was perhaps somewhat inevitable, there’s discussion of the weather. And weather forecasting. We’re enormously right. Moving on to thunderstorms, you’ll understand this brings us to discussing the Scouting movement. Which of course leads into a conversation about breakfast cereals. And Victoria Wood. And Armando Iannucci. And Chris Langham. Ending on a teaser for the next episode! We’re a serial drama.

Email us! About anything you like. Who knows, in about two months we may read it on the podcast.

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.

As ever, we depend on you to promote this. Please, take the time to retweet it, tell friends, or post about it on forums, that sort of thing. Ooh, and write us a review on iTunes. That sort of thing is very helpful. Go on. For the children.

Opening with a terrifying clatter of the microphone, the matter not under discussion this week is: Is it the end of the great British pub? More immediately discussed is the tragedy of the Lost Rum Doings. Inevitably going down in legend, an entire episode of Rum Doings was lost to the cruel twist of Audacity’s crashing, causing us to immediately begin another to replace it.

And you know what – thank goodness. Because the result is the most positive episode of Rum Doings that will likely ever exist. It’s a celebration of things that we like.

John likes the banality and idiocy of Eggheads. While Nick likes well cooked chips. (John rather stupidly refers to Golden Wonder potatoes as “Golden Delicious” – please forgive him this.) Then there’s crazy golf, fontanelles, warm coffee shops, hypno-running, Chicago, Radio 3, how Rum Doings saves lives, chicken, leaves of privet hedges, the Brandenburg Concerto, and others.

Oh, and email us! Tell us why you listen, and whether you’re one of our non-gamer listeners. Or leave a comment below. We need to know. For science. And if you’re a female cellist of course.

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.

As ever, we depend on you to promote this. Please, take the time to retweet it, tell friends, or post about it on forums, that sort of thing. And please actually do that. You, we mean. Yes, you, because you never bother, and it would be so little effort.

Rum Doings returns a week early for a very special tenth episode special. Very, very special. You may have noticed one subject comes up again and again, and in this episode we line a hundred sharks up in a row and jump them in spectacular fashion. For nine minutes. And then things return to normal.

Once normality is returned the subject not talked about this week is The Now Show. Which brings us to discussions of home made orange liqueur, the etymology of freelance, thoughts on drunkenness, and Nick’s stolen nitrous oxide. John’s hyper-evolved teeth come under scrutiny, what makes a good town, and wondering if it’s a good idea to cure cancer. And this leads inevitably to thoughts of environmentalism and the entropic death of the universe. And finally, what scared us as children.

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.

If you want to send us an email, it’s podcast@rumdoings.com. Or leave a comment below – we appreciate a little note to say hello, or how much you hate us.

And once again, the only thing we ask of your is promotion. Please blog, tweet, Facebook, IM, email, or whatever you wish, encouraging everyone you know to listen. Retweeting is massively helpful, and especially if you’re a world famous superstar. Join us in a couple of weeks for our Christmas Not As Special.

In Episode 9 of Rum Doings the topic not under discussion is whether it’s time we stopped funding the NHS. The topic under discussion is Neighbours. And that’s almost it.

No, come back! A Neighbours edition of Rum Doings was inevitable from the moment Nick first said, “Let’s record a podcast because I want to see how difficult it is to be good.” Neighbours – the Australian soap opera – has been something that has fascinated both of us since we’ve known each other – around fourteen years. Although neither of us have watched it for about six or seven. (You may well notice we talk about characters who are currently in it, who we had absolutely no idea were still around.)

There’s brief earlier discussion of Nick’s vestigial reproductive organs, our rule-breaking deviation from rum to a magical flavour-changing elixir, and the grammatical confusion of me/I that introduces our dominating topic.

Despite how rehearsed Nick’s opening to the discussion may seem, it’s all as spontaneous as ever. However, we did secretly decide we’d finally get around to talking about it this time. And we don’t apologise at all: this is our discussing why we found this programme so special for so many years. Although things do deviate in the last fifteen minutes, slightly.

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.

And another thing. We love that so many people are listening to Rum Doings. It pleases us greatly. So we need you to do something for us. We want none of your money, nor even your blood. We just want you to take the trouble to promote the podcast for us. Just a tweet. Or a Facebook post. Maybe comment on your blog, write a review on iTunes, or refer to it on a forum. Most easily of all, just retweet the link that perhaps alerted you to this post. It’s surprising, and pretty annoying, how few people have taken the time to do this – so come along, give us a link.

If you want to send us an email, it’s podcast@rumdoings.com. Or leave a comment below. We’ll read out emails regarding John’s new botty-friend and baby Judith’s poetic greetings in episode 10.

In the triumphant return of Rum Doings, delayed for a while by the birth of Nick’s daughter, Judith, we celebrate with the consumption of an Asda Smart Price meal. And indeed the possible consumption to follow.

This feast begins with a bowl of Asda Smart Price chicken curry, washed down with Asda Smart Price Dark Rum, with Asda Smart Price Chocolate Mousse to follow. Not discussed in the episode is John and Edward, whatever that might be, with instead the meandering topics covering Judith’s arrival, talking with our mouths full, and then alittlebitofpoliticsladiesandgentlemen. A belated discussion of Nick Griffin’s appearance on Question Time leads to thoughts on immigration and why we need more of it.

We offer a shout-out that probably won’t be too gratefully received, thoughts on parenting and being honest about ugly babies, considerations on the extraordinary nature of vanishing chocolate puddings, and then important matters of the bottom. John’s senility is gleefully highlighted by Nick, and Nick’s chicken hate hypocrisy is underlined by John. Then an astonishing discovery about chickens is unveiled. Find out about the time John was allowed to work in a hospital pathology lab, and Nick shares memories of his wife’s c-section. Oh, and John’s fat.

To subscribe to Rum Doingsclick here, or you can find it in iTunes here. To download it directly, right-click and save as here.

If you’d like to email Rum Doings, point your comments toward podcast@rumdoings.com. Send in poetic greetings to Judith Mailer, and indeed suggested names for John’s haemorrhoid. Now you want to listen.

We’d like you to encourage others to listen too. Please retweet, re-email, reFacebook, re-high-street-poster-campaign the link, tell friends. Maybe don’t tell them the haemorrhoid part. That can be a surprise for them.

Sorry about the lack of Rum Doings this week. This was due to Nick’s wife Victoria squeezing out a tiny baby human, which apparently was more important than recording a podcast. Please accept my sincere apologies for Nick’s complete lack of priorities.

Hopefully we’ll be recording a new episode at the end of this coming week.

In the meantime you can catch up on old episodes from here. Or you can subscribe to it on iTunes here.

And if you’re desperate to hear my voice, I’m on the latest PC Gamer podcast, saying rude things about idiots. I’d link to it but their website appears to be down just now.

In episode 7 of Rum Doings the topic not under discussion is how we can fix Broken Britain.

More readily discussed are John’s inability to sing and Nick’s desperate need to hear it, the scandalous gossip regarding John’s sexual impropriety with Nick’s wife, and the terrifying contents of some Super-8 film. And that’s in the first five minutes.

Loyal listeners will be relieved to learn that the episode contains the results of our experiments performed on all 3.5bn women in the world, and the resulting contention for the Noble Prize 100p prize. Then things descend into the usual arguing about hat doffing, the awfulness of the word “used”, and moist ladygardens. And the controversy controversy. And very much more, including a frenzied debate over the title “artist”.

To subscribe to the podcast click here, or you can find it in iTunes here. To download it directly, right-click and save as here.

Thank you to everyone who’s been plugging this for us. Please keep going. Retweeting is a tiny favour, but makes a huge difference for us. Tell your friends, colleagues, and so on. And please actually do this – you won’t believe how much help it is just to tell two or three people. If you want to email us at Rum Doings, send emails to podcast@rumdoings.com. We’ll respond to your questions in the next episode.

At the centre of so many of the current super-injunctions and and brain-meltingly bizarre libel decisions in UK courts is one judge, Mr Justice Eady. In my previous post I asked whether anyone knew whether he was the judge behind the Trafigura rulings. As it turns out, he was not. A fact that surprised the Guardian’s George Monbiot as much as it did me, as he explains in a fantastic piece about this man whose decisions have been described by appeal court judges as, “plainly wrong”, “legally erroneous” and have earned comparisons with the Communist party censors in the Soviet Union.

Eady, Monbiot explains, is a force behind the existence of libel tourism in this country, and a huge part of the reason why courts in other countries are creating new laws to protect their citizens from his potential rulings.

So often you hear stupid, loud people screeching about “free speech” and how theirs is being taken from them. Inevitably they’re being given absolute freedom to scream this with no one trying to stop them, and indeed are only spurting their self-important idiocy because they saw someone else disagreeing with them. But in this case the actions of the UK libel courts are a genuine example of free speech being at risk, and indeed completely denied.

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