I was realy puzzled by how easily the Doctor influenced the Web of Time. If it's that easy, why hasn't he done during the hundreds of other times he mentioned things? Okay, so he does it accidentally in "The Planet of Evil" (if you believe "Zeta Major"), but about the off-handed comments he makes in "Mark of the Rani?"

The scientists in Mark of the Rani were probably too busy pondering what the Doctor and Peri got up to in the TARDIS to notice any futuristic hints he might have let slip.

I'm not sure if the Zeta Major stuff is in the same league - I mean, we know the Nazis weren't supposed to have radar, but we don't know that the Doctor wasn't destined to completely mess up Morestran civilisation for a couple of thousand years by opening his big gob. Could all, however unpleasant, have been part of the Web of Time.

Don't forget Ace messed with time kicking a coke can in No Future. How difficult can it be? In fact, it ought to happen a lot more often. Except that The Dimension Riders claimed that Earth at this time was a 'rare stretch of immutable Time with a huge inertia.'

Benny audio version (Doctor out, Jason in, TARDIS out, time rings in):

Well, at least Jason had a better excuse than the Doctor for mentioning 'radar' to a bloody Nazi - his translator device doesn't do accents.

Ma is EVELYN! Sure, she has the perfect warm maternal voice for it, but it's INCREDIBLY jarring.

'My time ring stops me ageing' - since when! And why would the Doctor hand out a device like that to an ex-Companion anyway?

'If you go back to the future you'll see this is the real history' - would a real native SAY stuff like that? And how would they know that the Nazi occupation isn't caused by alien interference, anyway?

Ma takes SEVERAL MONTHS before she bothers to ask Benny if Britain will WIN World War Two?

'I don't want to die here! It wouldn't mean anything!' - Benny on fighting to stop Germans winning World War Two with super-alien-tech-stuff. Sounds pretty meaningful to ME.

Benny's islander accent is rather annoying.

The fact it's all too much for her even BEFORE she's captured and tortured by Nazis doesn't make for a fun audio. Couldn't Benny just leave a message with Ma for Jason if he turns up, and get the hell to the mainland?

Why does Benny give herself away when the sadist snaps a woman's neck? What good does she think she'll do?

Why is Benny so hysterically attached to her hair?

Bit stupid of Benny to tell the Nazi nurse all about her cunning plan. And then not gag her.

Benny is VERY forgiving of Jason accidentally giving Nazis the secret of radar. She usually DIVORCES him for this sort of thing. I seem to remember her giving the Doctor a MUCH harder time in the book, simply by staring at him so he can see what the Nazis did to her.

Benny tries to escape from Nazis after unloading her only weapon cos she's tired of guns? She's extraordinarily lucky that THAT works out so well for her.

'I have written down everything I remember about this war' - Benny. While living under Nazi occupation. Exactly how stupid IS she?

'I will never use my time ring again' - what, even though it stops you ageing? AND whisks you off through time and space??

For heaven's sake. This isn't the first time a Virgin book has DISINTEGRATED on me just cos I had the effrontery to actually READ it.

'This still feels like home' - I get that the Doc spent some time in Guernsey defeating invasions thirty years earlier, but why on Earth should that make it HOME?

'Celia sat alongside her, looking puzzled' - if Benny doesn't have the FIRST IDEA what happened to the Channel Islands in the 1940s, she should either have a) looked it up before the Doctor dumped her there for months, or b) not been dumped there for months.

'Every boat, every little barge on the south coast of England had been commandeered' - I thought people VOLUNTEERED?

'Even British propaganda afterwards admitted that it was a massive defeat' - it DID?

'Doctor, what's happening?' 'You know, it's been so long since one of my travelling companions asked me that' - the Doctor actually refers to them as TRAVELLING COMPANIONS to their FACES? (Never mind that with Chris Cwej around it just shouldn't be TRUE.)

If Celia was three years old when she died twenty-eight years ago, why does Benny bother with a holo-wig to make herself blonde? Lots of kids' blonde hair darkens as they get older.

And it's not as if 'Hi, I'm Ma Doras's long-lost daughter, reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, I've just been living on the mainland for no readily apparent reason for ages and now the island's overrun with Nazis I've come home' makes a particularly good cover story. Rather odd that no one but one collaborator comments on it and even she doesn't bother to take her suspicions to any of her Nazi lovers.

Why would a woman under Nazi occupation suddenly start wearing an RAF badge? Or if she's been wearing it all along, why wasn't she challenged sooner?

So Benny 'never lets them see her in her night-clothes' but she does wander the corridors in a towel?

So. Chris, Roz and even Benny DON'T HAVE THEIR OWN TARDIS KEYS. And don't RESENT this?

'I've preset most of the controls, but if you're not sure then just pull a few levers and press a few buttons at random. That's what I do, and it seems to work most of the time' - OK, firstly, why on Earth does the Doctor think Roz will be driving the TARDIS anywhere before he returns tomorrow morning and secondly WHAT THE HELL?

'Downing Street can't spare us any paratroopers' - what, not even to grab the man 'who could change the course of the war'??

Why isn't Benny wearing a watch, seeing as timing's quite important?

And given that the Doctor knew exactly when the explosion would happen, and decided to turn up for it himself, why gratuitously dump Benny in Nazi-occupied territory for THREE MONTHS beforehand?

'As he strolled up the beach he left no footprints in the sand', he magically bolts and unbolts Benny's bedroom door, arrives swiftly and inexplicably sans TARDIS, not to mention 'He took a last look at his reflection. "Don't go avay!" he ordered it in a mock-German accent...If Ulrilda had glanced back at the mirror...she would have seen the Doctor's image raise his hat, a broad grin on his face, before he slowly faded from view'...Look, it's one thing for Human Nature to have omnipotent god-Doctor (cos Tennant is just so •••• sexy in the role), it's quite another for a mere book to try to pull it off.

'She had always known that he was an alien, an immortal being who resembled a scruffy little middle-aged man, but most of the time the knowledge sat at the back of her mind and she didn't let it bother her' - SHE didn't let it bother her! Sky Pirates! made it QUITE clear that HE'S hypnotising such issues out of Benny's head whenever she thinks 'em. And she knows it.

'The Doctor seemed embarrassed. "Please, Professor Summerfield, put some clothes on, I have a reputation to maintain"' 'Er, won't you get cold like that?' 'I'll meet you downstairs when you're dressed' - yeah, none of this is exactly backing up Benny's claim that 'He was also the only person she'd ever known who didn't notice when she was naked.'

The Nazis JUST DON'T NOTICE that Benny (incredibly stupidly) lets slip that she knew Gerhard died on the beach?

It's astonishing that an Intelligence agency fails to notice there's anything a bit odd about Roz, what with her blundering around talking about smoke signals and Servobots.

'If you were a German agent captured in England, you would indeed have been shot...Unlike your own government, even the British agents we pick up in plain clothes are treated as military prisoners of war, with all the rights and privileges that status entails' - that's just not true, is it. Why doesn't the Doctor correct him?

'I predict that when we attack, the Russians will turn on their own leaders' - sorry, aren't you hoping to take Stalin by SURPRISE and not tell any Tom, Dick or Doctor your Soviet-invasion plans?

So Benny's captured because she drinks an entire bottle of Scotch and then wanders around? How stupid IS she?

'I'm not sure I'd be able to find Paddington by myself' - for heaven's sake, can't Roz at least find an A-Z?

'Oh, I never lose my Queen' - well you did in Illegal Alien, Doctor. When you were playing chess with a Nazi-sympathiser, just like here (only a lot rubbisher). Plus I bet K9 got your Queen a few times or you wouldn't have kept tipping that board over...

'Reed, like most Englishmen, had little ability with foreign languages' - what, aside from his perfect Xhosa pronunciation, you mean?

Why is a 15-year-old would-be nun attempting to seduce Chris?

Why does Roz leave her handbag behind?

Why doesn't the Doctor notice that the cows are concrete? He notices that everything ELSE is concrete, and surely the lack of cow pats and THE FACT THEY'RE NOT MOVING would give the game away?

'Now in his seventh incarnation - or so he claimed' - oh, don't try THAT one on me. He's Seven, alright.

To be continued...

Mel 'had been travelling with the Doctor for a number of years now' - you're kidding! I'm not sure which is worse - the prospect of the Sixth Doctor having all those extra years or the prospect of the poor Seventh Doctor having to put up with HER for years.

'"The past! I've only ever been to the future before," she said excitedly' - what, even though you've been travelling in the TARDIS for YEARS??

'She would certainly have no difficulty finding a souvenir of this trip' - since when has Mel gone round buying stuff to remind her of each TARDIS landing? And why did she not take ANY of it with her when she ran off with Glitz?

The Doctor and Chris leave the shot-in-the-leg guard untied-up and ungagged and able to raise the alarm? (After the Doc's stopped Chris from cold-bloodedly executing him, that is.)

Just not getting how Benny could have NOT betrayed the Dorases, given that she spilt her guts about everything ELSE (like future history, thanks a bunch for betraying the ENTIRE HUMAN RACE Benny, not that it matters much given that you've considerately brought a BOOK DETAILING THE COURSE OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR to the Nazi-occupied Channel Islands) and the Nazi was specifically questioning her about how she knew the name of the soldier she'd murdered. And she's in no condition to make up convincing lies.

'Time is a relative concept, and...once we had hyperdrive, and people started arriving places before they set off because they were travelling so fast, the whole thing became somewhat meaningless. The big corporations and most of the people on the Inner Worlds use their own local time...Those of us bumming around the Outer Planets, or outside Human Space entirely, tend to use Terran Mean Time, simply for convenience...I could give you the date relative to Galactic Centre Adjusted, that would be about three-quarters of a century before the same date on Earth' - DEAR Lance Parkin! Valiantly attempting to excuse the fact that NAs authors keep contradicting each other about which century Benny was born in.

'It travels through something called the Vortex, a transdimensional spiral built by the Doctor's people which encompasses all points in space and time' - the Time Lords built the Vortex since WHEN!

'Although there had been a number of incursions later on in this century, the first official, lasting, contact with an alien race wouldn't be made for one hundred and fifty years' - oh come on, even with those bloody Cracks conveniently wiping out every Dalek invasion, SURELY Earth noticed aliens BEFORE the END of the twenty-first century?

'Every wild animal and plant species had disappeared from the Earth by the thirtieth century, except for humanity and the rat' - I'd hardly call humanity a wild animal or plant.

'Chris was surprised how fast the Doctor could run' - he's been a Companion for quite a while, SURELY they've done plenty of running-down-corridors together?

'If the Doctor, Benny and Chris were all dead then she had two choices: stay here, or go back to her own time in the TARDIS' - has Sexy got a hitherto unsuspected take-the-Companion-back-to-her-own-time switch? Cos if not, Roz is bizarrely sure of being able to steer the thing. And if she CAN steer it, why go home to a time in which she's a wanted criminal rather than, say, back to the Worldsphere which is so wonderful even I'd've abandoned the Doctor to settle there.

'New Year's Eve: that German private who'd come into her room. She remembered his hot breath on her neck, his hand on her face' - hang on, why the hell didn't she lock her room? She obsessively locks it every time she so much as nips out to the loo, as well she might given her diary, history-of-World-War-Two book, spy-notes and bottle of whisky. And in what way does this fit in with the previous claim that the Germans in the boarding-house had 'for what it was worth, behaved in the proper fashion'?

'You will kill her' 'That is of no concern. Perhaps we will learn the truth before she dies' - whatever happened to Steinmann's realisation that she'd be a valuable hold on the Doctor?

'We need to get down there, try to find a clue to Hartung's whereabouts' - in the middle of an air raid? Are you NUTS!

Not quite understanding how someone as weakened by torture, drugs, and sleep-deprivation as Benny could possibly manage to overpower a Nazi with a BUTTER-KNIFE and get out of their base. Surely the Nazis wouldn't have given her a SHARP knife with which to spread her butter...?

'The buildings looked like a row of people with their eyes gouged out' - ah yes, Lance Parkin no doubt feels his readership will be foaming at the mouth for the inevitable eye-gouging so generously gives us a little taster before the main course.

'Bomber Command claim one hundred per cent success, but they always do' - what, Bomber Command spent the war LYING THROUGH ITS TEETH?

'Professor Summerfield was in front of Kitzel, the cutlery knife concealed up her left sleeve' - well, I don't quite see how THAT would work. '[Kitzel] had already judged that escape would be impossible' WHY, exactly?

'I've seen a future in which the Nazis did [win], a future that wasn't all that different. Ten years from now a swastika flew over the Festival of Britain instead of a Union Flag. The king was called Edward, not George. Tiny changes' - er...that wasn't really the impression I got from Timewyrm: Exodus. The trouble with this book pushing a British-are-as-bad-as-the-Nazis message is that it involves a lot of this sort of lying. The Nazis are always telling us how nice they are and the Doctor doesn't even bother to point out that er, no they're not.

'Roz thrust her hand up to his face, her outstretched fingers thrusting straight into the target's right eye. She felt the jelly of his eyeball give way, she felt the retina detach beneath her fingertips, she felt droplets of blood splash against the back of her hand as his eyelid ripped' - yup, you can just TELL that this guy will go on to write a book called The Eyeless. For kids.

I'm sorry...when he recaptures the Doctor Steinmann JUST DOESN'T BOTHER TO MENTION said Doctor breaking his sworn word and escaping, killing several Nazis in the process? How...polite. And then he goes on to show this traitor everything - the blueprints, the actual secret plane. And...oh gods...he does so when ALONE AND UNGUARDED with the Doctor and Chris. What exactly did he THINK they were gonna do...?

Kendrick just doesn't notice Roz's engagement ring?

'The Doctor's stomachs lurched' - the Doctor's WHAAAAAAAAT!

And surely if he had two stomachs he should eat MORE than humans do, not less...?

'She almost certainly hadn't been in here before' - I don't care how 'not in touch with her feminine side' Roz is, how in hell's name could she POSSIBLY have spent what's almost certainly months in the TARDIS without CHANGING HER CLOTHES??

'Benny had often wondered when this collection and been acquired and why the Doctor had the inclination to collect women's clothing from a thousand worlds' - you and me both, Sunshine. Sometime after The Crusades, that's all I know.

'She needed to find a phone' - you'd think arch-manipulator Seven would have installed one in the TARDIS. (Eccy finds it inconceivable that the TARDIS wouldn't have one, so he's obviously got a short memory.)

'Was Mel leaving him so soon?' - you REALLY haven't got the hang of this 'Mel's been around for years' thing, have you. Plus the Doc's apparently an expert on Hartung's life and would know if he'd married a carrot-haired screamer, wouldn't he.

Ah, of course, Longbow. Whenever the audios/books/New Series etc invent YET ANOTHER British alien-fighting organisation and I feel the compulsive need to list 'em all, I always forget about bloody Longbow.

'He'd memorised the chapter in Summerfield's book, watched each one of its predictions come true in turn. His warnings had gone unheeded, his actions had made no effect' - well, isn't THAT lucky. One casual mention of BATS by the Doctor to Hartung in the 1930s nearly alters the course of the war, but Benny's blow-by-blow account of future history is totally ignored by the superiors of the Nazi who found it? WHY? Surely after a couple of spot-on predictions SOMEONE would have listened. And the Nazis were, as Rani would put it, 'into weird'. They wouldn't have been adverse to the thought of a bit of advice from the future to help them towards their glorious Aryan destiny.

And surely if he had two stomachs he should eat MORE than humans do, not less...?

On second thoughts, maybe two (or more) stomachs will be so staggeringly good at extracting all the nutrients from anything he eats that he CAN get by on barely enough to keep a sparrow alive.

And why weren't the extra stomach(s) mentioned in all those hospital scans he's had? Doctors DID tend to notice the two hearts...well, eventually.

Ah, of course, Longbow. Whenever the audios/books/New Series etc invent YET ANOTHER British alien-fighting organisation and I feel the compulsive need to list 'em all, I always forget about bloody Longbow.

Ah, apparently that should be LONGBOW cos it's an acronym for...something. (TARDIS Wikia: 'When asked on rec.arts.drwho what LONGBOW stood for, Just War author Lance Parkin admitted he only came up with "League of Nations Global..." He accepted Chris Schumacher's guess of "League Of Nations Global Bizarre Occurences [sic] Watch" as the "right answer".)

And surely if he had two stomachs he should eat MORE than humans do, not less...?

On second thoughts, maybe two (or more) stomachs will be so staggeringly good at extracting all the nutrients from anything he eats that he CAN get by on barely enough to keep a sparrow alive.

And why weren't the extra stomach(s) mentioned in all those hospital scans he's had? Doctors DID tend to notice the two hearts...well, eventually.

And then there's the three brain-stems (Extremis)...

Bookwyrm:

'The Doctor joins the Nazi party, swearing allegiance to the Fuhrer' - I guess that answers my question about whether the Doc would have sworn allegiance to Ti as easily as Meglos did in his place. (Or maybe not, as Tom isn't McCoy. Well, technically speaking he is, but - oh, never mind.)

'"This is Guernsey, late December 1941. Merry Christmas, Celia." A page later, "Celia"...wakes up and it's the first of March, 1941...is it a clever epilogue-as-prologue? Is it a complex in-and-out-of-different-times story? Actually, no, it's a typo' - oops.

'Towards the end of the book, the Doctor dresses as a nun...As the book continues, the Doctor conspicuously fails to change out of his disguise. According to legend, Parking did this deliberately, as Andrew Cartmel, author of...the next book in the series, rarely, if ever, described what his characters were wearing, so one would be able to imagine the seventh Doctor dressed as a nun throughout what was undoubtedly going to be...a very serious and miserable book' - ••••, completely missed the joke when rereading Warchild. (Which wasn't actually THAT miserable, I mean, so dogs were slaughtering loads of people but what do you EXPECT from the cat-hating curs?)

fried ••••• cat, mmm, tasty

The notion of dogs and cats being mortal enemies is rubbish. Cartoon stuff.

In reality they can get along just fine. I've seen it myself. My friend once bought her dog over to my apartment. Said dog and my cat just sniffed each other. That was it.

And many people have both as pets.

Look, that's all very lovely but at the risk of sounding racist, some species just shouldn't get along together.

Like Daleks making us tea, you just KNOW it's gonna end badly.

Sooner or later.

(And if not, WHY not!)

Sorry, I'm just bitter cos my next-door neighbour has just moved out taking her darling Tabitha with her and her replacement has just got, well, y'know, one of THOSE things.

The MOST irritating thing is it's a miniature...something, it's LITERALLY smaller than a cat and if you want something that size then why in hell's name don't you JUST GET A CAT FOR ME TO LOVE?

Weird, for such an educational book, that Just War never mentioned that practically EVERY policeman on Guernsey was stealing from Nazis to feed the poor. I certainly don't remember Benny thinking she could TRUST any policemen.

'The Doctor's stomachs lurched' - the Doctor's WHAAAAAAAAT!

Four and Romana II only have one stomach apiece in The Self-Made Man...mind you, there's also a mention of 'heartbeats' rather than 'heartsbeats'...