Eclectic Gypsy: An Unauthorised Biography of Doctor Who by Dave Thompson:

Lovely idea, to show us the Doctor's lives through a bunch of press clippings. In the right hands (i.e. mine) it would've made a terrific book. As it is, it veers from mediocre (most of it) to unspeakably abysmal (the pre-Unearthly Child stuff) to utterly inspired (that interview with the Midnight Entity...Best. Thing. EVER.). And it's extraordinarily carelessly executed - swarming with typos and, more unforgivably, with the most basic Who-errors (the back-cover blurb alone informs us that the Doctor is over 700 years old...). I mean, I know these are supposed to be unreliable narrations, but there are limits...

As far as the source material's concerned, love Kangzine Fanzine, Space Dirt and Private Eyestalk. Less keen on 'Dancing with the Doctor - My Life as a Time Lord's Plaything' - there is simply no way that River Song would regard herself as any man's 'plaything'.

I'm not even gonna THINK about listing all the mistakes, but amongst the most glaring are: the mis-spelling of 'Thal' as 'Thaal'...every single time; the claim that an alien race 'stocked' Earth (hello! We evolved right here! Thanks to the Jaggeroth); the constant, infuriating reference to 'the Princess Romana' (plus the one amusing reference to 'the Princess Leela'); 'might and brain' (instead of 'might and main'); the reference to Earth as 'Planet Earth' every single time (grossly irritating even BEFORE the blasphemous rewriting of Eccy's 'turn of the Earth' speech to accommodate this nonsense. Oh, and the references to 'New Planet Earth'...)

So the Rani marries Davros. Fine, whatever. I'm not even gonna bother banging my head against the wall. Much. I mean, it's a small sin, compared to her HAVING THE DOCTOR'S BABY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (What in HELL'S name would make ANYONE think it's a GOOD IDEA to produce ANY 'Young Hartnell' stuff?? Let alone AFTER Divided Loyalties considerately spelt out EXACTLY what sort of abomination would result?)

Why claim the Doc's mind was wiped cos he was so exceptional when you've just said he's a bit thick?

'At best, he was an outright fraud; at worst, he was a temporal disruption' - look, no one in their right mind approves of this 'half-human' nonsense, but THAT'S a bit harsh towards our poor darling Eighth Doctor...

This seems to take rather too literally Susan's talk about bunking off school in Telos' Time and Relative novella. She wasn't being LITERAL, she was trying to get around the blocks on her memory...

Oh god, it canonises John and Gillian. Why, WHY, GODS????? Why is a quarter of this book devoted to the First Doctor when it has the perfect excuse (loss of half the source material) to skip the whole thing?

'He has a pipe, which he smokes on one occasion' - no, the TV viewer happens to only see him smoke it once, you moron!

'Four strangers were also sighted in the vicinity of Forester's home during the time in question' - wow. SOMEONE must have very good eyesight...

Why are dates of '1964' being given for all the events in the Dalek Invasion of Earth two hundred years later? Ditto for Monoids being from 1966, or the Doctor getting through 'nine further regenerations since his first, a mere 40 years ago' - SOMEONE seems to be getting the Doctor's life confused with a TV programme...

Love the animal rights activists hunting for Barbara for her heartless and premeditated attack on Sandy...the only problem being 'no witnesses have yet come forward' so how the hell do they know?

'Other noteworthy holdings certain to fascinate visitors from the Planet Earth include the Starship Enterprise, Fireball XL5 and fragments from the Death Star' - OK, I don't even know what a third of those ARE, but the HELL they exist in the Whoniverse!

'God save Maaga' - the Drahvins have a GOD? Goddess, surely?!

How DARE this claim that Time Lords always regenerate into the same sex (HELLO! End of Time, people!) and 'almost without exception' into younger-looking bodies?

The Wheel in Space is 'one of the seven manmade wonders of the Universe' - you're kidding, right?

'Crew member Zoe Heriot....has not been sighted since the Doctor departed the Wheel' - yes she has!

River Song claims that Jo Grant 'wasn't simply a beauty. She was angelically so, the Doctor's own Helen of Troy'...! Blimey, to think I always considered 'very small and very pretty' to be a bit of an exaggeration...

'Sarah Jane witnessed [the regeneration] alone' - yeah, except for Cho-Je and half UNIT...

The Fourth Doc 'was a tangle of contradictions and madness' - say WHAT!

'The Sevateem have been described as the last great primitive tribe in the universe' - in the UNIVERSE?!

Surely all that talk of a 'tenth stone' at the Nine Travellers ignores the fact that several Ogri went walkabout?

This is very shaky on the Key to Time, from referring to 'Keys' to claiming the Doc kept one segment as a keepsake, to saying that Romana I reduced the Doctor to a 'quaking schoolboy' to claiming they met Astra at the outset of the hunt...

'She was, according to anthropological experts, an Australian, although it is uncertain whether this is a mental or physical condition' - nice one!

'Mortally injured in a fall from the Pharos radio antenna on the outskirts of Logopolis' - ahem!

BORUSA expresses great rage and dissatisfaction with every aspect of the Sixth Doctor's persona? Is he giving interviews from Rassilon's tomb these days?

'Ace would become the first non-Gallifreyan to win acceptance into the Prydon Academy on Gallifrey, there to train as a Time Lord' - why in hell's name is this trying to canonise Death Comes to Time?

Hex would also accompany the Doctor alone? When?

Rose is 23 when she meets the Doctor? Eccy looks in his early 30s...?

Ha! Claims Tosh joined Torchwood AFTER the Space Pig incident!

Why include snippets from Torchwood and the SJA that have no Doctorish involvement?

Acknowledgements - Who is the world's 'second greatest television show' - you SICK FREAK!!!!!!!

Who is the world's 'second greatest television show'

Obviously after "K9"....

Re: Emily's last post
Regarding the Key to Time, The Doctor may have kept the "fake segment", that he made from Chronodyne, if it had not completely disintegrated due to Temporal stress, but considering that he dispersed the Key's segments, at the end of the Armageddon Factor, otherwise no way...
I suspect that the Enterprise & Fireball XL-5 reference, is that in Star Trek & Fireball XL-5, said ships travelled in time, but used different methods to do so...
(There have been some indirect references to Star Trek in Doctor Who novels, that infer that both the Romulan Star Empire, & the Klingon homeworld exist in the Whoniverse, but the canonicity regarding such is uncertian at best...).

(There have been some indirect references to Star Trek in Doctor Who novels, that infer that both the Romulan Star Empire, & the Klingon homeworld exist in the Whoniverse, but the canonicity regarding such is uncertian at best...).

Ugg, ugg, 'uncertain canonicity' is far too charitable - LIES, ALL LIES!!!

I think the Kaldor City audios also imply that Blake's 7 is set in the Whoniverse. As if!

The Diary of a Dr Who Addict by Paul Magrs:

What's with the 'Dr' nonsense?

Hmm. Nick Griffiths did a good factual account of the life of a Who addict (Dalek I Loved You) but I'm not sure we're interesting enough to justify novelising our existences. By definition, the most exciting parts of our lives always involve...watching television. (I suppose throwing in dead dads and being gay and Northern and stuff is supposed to liven it up. Obviously I prefer the descriptions of Doctor Who and the Cave Monsters.)

Well, Magrs certainly gets the sense of obsession spot-on. And the way you're always half-expecting to see the TARDIS in 'real life'. And half-expecting your injured granny to regenerate. And boy do I know that feeling when someone looks at a Dalek and calls it a 'robot'...

Though mind you...Why isn't this odious little git mourning the Fourth Doctor at all? And how come he doesn't just tell his parents to shut the **** up when they TALK through Who? And why does he think the whole of E-Space is just white, empty space?! And, worse of all...why is there no sense whatsoever of his entire existence being transformed by the appearance of a video recorder? (It wasn't quite the coming of the New Series for me, but by god it was the next best thing.)

If Brian's lived in England 'most of his life' how come he's so shocked by the lack of TV channels?

These people haven't got a telephone? I'm sorry, it would have been CONSIDERABLY more realistic if granny HAD regenerated. I mean, this is a latest-gadget-mad household! Yet there is no point in having a phone cos there's no one to talk to?! So DAVID has no friends? His MOTHER has no friends? His STEPFATHER has no friends? His STEPGRANDMOTHER has no friends (or...er...sisters in America or anything)?? His FATHER didn't need to be contactable, I mean he was only a POLICEMAN?! And it's funny that David previously mentioning ringing people - without mentioning going out to a phone box. And it's funny that they've got the cheek to complain about his maternal grandmother never letting them know before she comes for a visit...

'Neither do you. You're the same as me' says David to the friend who accuses him of not talking about girls or football (and therefore of being a 'puff'.) Er...that's the friend who spends half his life talking about girls and brilliantly playing football.

If David's got 'just enough' money to buy the Leisure Hive (bad mistake there, chum) why is he thinking of buying insense five minutes later?

No telephone. What century are these people living in? Or are they Amish?

It was the early 80s. (1980s, that is.) Magrs MIGHT even have been able to portray the North of England as some godforsaken (or at least technology-forsaken) wilderness...had he not announced that THIS household is ALWAYS the first in town to get a new gadget, whether it's a video player or a sandwich-maker...But obviously Mr Bell's invention was just a bit TOO outre for them, even with an elderly accdient-prone woman in the house...

Moderator's Note: Moved from the New Series: Season Three: The Shakespeare Code thread:

Well I've already used the Tom/Peter regeneration as a prelude to a presentation on "The Diary Of A Doctor Who Addict" which I got a distinction for....

What, you didn't do a presentation on that godawful Magrs book? What's wrong with Dead Romance?

I actually DID do a presentation on that book. It was perfect for young adult readers who wanted a hook into Doctor Who...

Well congratulations for thinking of SOMETHING worthwhile to say about that piece of pointlessness. Now say it HERE...

Defending The Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook:
I started reading Defending The Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook before I was I was informed that it is a supplement for the role-playing game Doctor Who: Adventures In Time and Space.
So without having the said game I read Defending The Earth: The UNIT Sourcebook completely in isolation from the game.
It is quite an entertaining read about UNIT its history and what role it plays in the security of Earth.
It has an explanation which was not provided by the Doctor Who TV series on why the UNIT acronym changed from standing for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to Unified Intelligence Taskforce.
As this was a supplement for a game it provides interesting scenario of what happens when UNIT operatives are in a given situation.
While the book is enjoyable it is somewhat perplexing why it needed to go through areas encountered by the Doctor that UNIT could not have any possible knowledge of such as E-Space.
Surely it is better for UNIT to stick to what it knows rather than go to areas that only the Doctor has knowledge that he did not share with UNIT.

It has an explanation which was not provided by the Doctor Who TV series on why the UNIT acronym changed from standing for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce to Unified Intelligence Taskforce.

Ooh - WHAT?!

it is somewhat perplexing why it needed to go through areas encountered by the Doctor that UNIT could not have any possible knowledge of such as E-Space.

Surely it is better for UNIT to stick to what it knows rather than go to areas that only the Doctor has knowledge that he did not share with UNIT.

Agreed.

Had it been PERTWEE who'd accidentally slipped into E-Space, that would be one thing, but I can think of no reason UNIT should have been informed of Tom's Season 18 wanderings. (Unless the Seventh Doctor's supper with the Brig, Doris, Bambera, Ace and Ancelyn involved an EXTRAORDINARILY detailed account of his adventures since he'd pretty-much abandoned the Brig in Terror of the Zygons...?)

Unless the Seventh Doctor's supper with the Brig, Doris, Bambera, Ace and Ancelyn involved an EXTRAORDINARILY detailed account of his adventures since he'd pretty-much abandoned the Brig in Terror of the Zygons...?

I imagine any dinner with the Doctor would end up like the one seen in the Simpsons episode 'Like Father, Like Clown'. Let's hope that the Lethbridge-Stewarts didn't have 'The Concert for Bangladesh' on tape*.

(* Though, given the subtlety and ingenuity with which the rest of 'Battlefield' creates an impeccable sense of near future verisimilitude, they're more likely to have it on Holographic Vid-Cartridge.)

Boy, this is definitely your slagging-off-Battlefield week. (Mind you, EVERY week is your slagging-off-Battlefield week.) How were they to know the wretched Queen would live FOREVER? Or that we'd be DEPRIVED of our FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHT to five-pound coins?

What happened in this Simpson episode?

The problem isn't that they get the predictions wrong but that they try to create a sense of the future in such a clunky way. I imagine it might have looked a bit better on paper... and it's not my fault that Battlefield is such a big dopey sitting target.

As for The Simpsons, in short a famous person turns up for dinner, prompting much excitement, then overstays his welcome. It's quite funny.

Boy when EMILY says you're picking on a show too much then it really IS the fourth sign of the apocalypse...

Next she'll be saying "I think you're slagging off Colin Baker a bit too much".

the fourth sign of the apocalypse

With Tsar Vladimir Putin seemingly pushing the world towards World War III, that might not be far from the truth.

He needs to remember what happened to the last Tsar who pushed the world towards a World War.

Ooh! It's obviously not just Battlefield that Kate regards as a sitting target...

Yeah every time Putin opens his mouth, I get this strange desire to lead him down to a cellar in Yekaterinburg...

He needs to remember what happened to the last Tsar who pushed the world towards a World War.

I think Putin is thinking more along the lines of: "Bring it on, West. We beat Napoleon, we beat Hitler, we'll beat you too."

Of course, in both cases, Russia alone did not defeat them. They needed the West's help. The same West that Putin seems to want to go to war with for reasons I can't fathom (the man has clearly lost touch with reality, the Russians need to rise up and kick him out before it's too late).

The Doctor: His Lives and Times:

Nice (if confusing) combination of Production Team quotations and seeing the adventures through the eyes of the actual characters. The Doctor's School Report is a particular highlight, and there's lots of other fun to be had ('Mr Chesterton has even become quite the expert at the food machine, and regularly presents Grandfather with cups of hot chocolate. This seems to make Grandfather cross.') albeit not on the scale of 'Eclectic Gypsy: An Unauthorised Biography of Doctor Who'.

'We have never really ended up in any danger' (pre-Unearthly Child) - leaving aside the Companion Chronicles etc, Susan says in the very next paragraph that she's 'met several kings. All of them have tried to execute us.'

If Susan hates Coal Hill School, why does she try to abandon Grandfather for it?

So Ian and Barbara have 'responded to being abducted marvellously' - whilst treating Grandfather 'with hostility and suspicion'?

'How is what we do in history any better, any more skilled than Barbara's attempts? What about the Daleks - before we arrived, they knew nothing of other worlds, or even of time travel...' - excellent point, albeit one that Susan shouldn't be worried about pre-Invasion of Earth, what with the Daleks being permanently dead and all...

'Cameron or Campbell or whatever the boy's name is' 'Couldn't resist leaving behind some potatoes as a last little bit of mischief. Maybe the Doctor will land in the Middle Ages and wonder why he's being served chips' - for a book that's (entirely understandably) ignoring the novels and audios, it's weird that it's going to so much trouble to explain away mistakes in the Dalek Invasion/Time Warrior novelisations.

Vicki: 'I have lost my own words and must learn his tongue' - there's no on-screen indication that Companions lose their linguistic abilities when they leave the TARDIS, is there?

'Our two civilisations have reached a crisis point. Who shall be supreme - the Elders, or the Savages?' - as if ANY Elder (or anyone else, come to that) would describe what the SAVAGES had as a 'civilisation'.

'I think the fact that she screamed when she saw things she didn't like was perfectly reasonable' - Verity Lambert on Susan. Yeah, it WOULD be IF ONLY there weren't things she didn't like ALL OVER THE PLACE.

'Loving the programme but noticing the rough edges, Sydney Newman asked Verity Lambert to remount the first episode' - DID he love it? An Adventure in Space and Time certainly didn't give me that impression...

'We were allowed to go ahead with The Daleks, simply because none of the other scripts had been finished' - Whitaker. I thought Masters of Luxor WAS finished, just...a bit rubbish?

Love Sarah dictating her autobiography, claiming she's from 1980 because 'It keeps it all sounding current...if I bang on about the 1970s they'll just think flares and kipper ties and eurgh!...It doesn't matter. Nobody will ever care about the odd year here or there'. It's a rare skill to plug a massive nit whilst taking the •••• out of the fans, whilst so clearly being a fan yourself...

What, they Space-Time-Telegraphed the Doctor to come and look at the Krynoid seedpod? He wasn't just hanging around Earth ANYWAY?

DON'T write a Bi-Al Foundation report unless you're prepared to do so phonetically.

Romana I's 'operational capability was of a quotient considerably higher than that of the Doctor' says K9. The HELL it was! Sure, her record for the minimum time taken to retrieve a segment of the Key to Time WAS better than his, but did the mutt just not notice what happened NEXT...?

'The mistress Romana's second regeneration was more compatible with the Doctor-master's character and with only a 3.7 per cent loss in overall efficiency' - the HELL there was!

'A Dalek squad (battle-damaged and therefore unfit for proper duty) would report to Skaro and unearth their long-buried creator Davros' - nice attempt to explain away the appearance of the Destiny Daleks. However, with both space-fleets 'hung motionless for centuries' they could have spared some tip-top-condition Daleks for this all-important mission, surely?

'When the Doctor-master reassembled the Key to Time, one component was faulty. The rebalancing of the universe was imperfect, causing a rapid acceleration in the heat death of the universe' - since WHEN! I thought that was entirely natural, um, entropy always increases and suchlike?

'We found my uncle had been kidnapped by people working for an ancient alien Devil living in a church' - her GRANDFATHER, you morons!

The Valeyard: 'It's curious that I can imagine destroying all Gallifrey with so little compunction. It's almost as if, at some point in his future he will... But no. He wouldn't. He couldn't.' - Nice.

'All powerful Time Lords go mad, from Rassilon to Borusa' - SURELY they'd've destroyed the universe by now?

I don't see how Lady Peinforte can be a 'widower'.

'Certainly, the [Master's] trial itself was extremely perfunctory, even by Dalek standards. The full transcript ran to a word count of two: "Exterminate" and "Exterminate".' - In which case, it wouldn't have been a trial. And whatever happened to the Master listening calmly as a list of his evil crimes was read out...?

Look, I SAID it was totally understandable for you to ignore the novels and audios (and OBVIOUSLY the comics)! Why is Eight/Nine suddenly going into some bizarre girls-who-may-or-may-not-be-there reminiscing about (apparently) Charley, Sam and Izzy? (Especially now that Night of the Doctor has made it clear the audios are true and the others aren't?) And if I don't get most of the references, how many other people will?

'Later to become Martha Smith' - there's no on-screen indication of that. And the credits had her down as double-barrelled.

If Harriet Jones feels 'There are more questions about Harold Saxon than there are answers. His mobile telephony revolution isn't all it seems, you mark my words', why does she write a 'Well Done Harry!' tabloid article?

'I'm delighted to confirm that my great great grandmother's sentence of exile on the Doctor and Miss Tyler has been rescinded with immediate effect' writes the Queen, post-Voyage of the Damned. Hmm. Had that letter been dated a few decades earlier, it might have gone SOME way towards explaining Torchwood's bizarre ignoring of the Doctor during the UNIT years.

The TARDIS: 'I let him down then - I was still re/pairing/growing/decorating so we missed Ameliapond first time around' - oh come off it! Sexy did that deliberately! She could hardly have bred River on a seven-year-old.

'A new start worked well story-wise, with the Doctor moping away on his cloud for 200 years' - NO. Matt can't AFFORD yet another 200 years on his clock...

The Time Lord Letters:

What a fantastic book this might have been. If submissions were thrown open to every Who author ever, say. What hilarious insanities might have crawled out from the corners of the Whoniverse to enrich our lives.

Instead of which, Justin Richards decided to write 'em all himself. Mainly by taking scenes from Who episodes, drearily padding them out and pretending the Doctor wrote them down. You can just imagine what excruciatingness emerged from, say, the blasphemous rewriting of the 'One day I shall come back' speech...

SPOILERS for Season 9/35:

ALL the Doctors bar War on the cover? That's discrimination!

(Blimey, I must have mellowed since attempting to ban him from Nitcentral's Doctors section. Of course, they might just be trying to be accurate, I don't remember any blood-stained epistles from Mr Hurt. (SIR Hurt. Whatever.) Which is a bit of a lost opportunity, come to think of it.)

'His sentence was, however, relatively lenient - an enforced change of appearance and exile to Earth' - yeah, who HASN'T felt that MURDERING PATRICK TROUGHTON was no biggie?

Oh for heaven's sake, now 'Theta Sigma' is 'his Academy Student Identification Code'? What's wrong with 'NICKNAME'?

'And it's not as if High Tutor Albrecht didn't have a few regenerations to spare' - would the Doctor REALLY be so flippant about MURDERING a life of a Time Lord? Would Gallifreyan law really PERMIT him to be so flippant? When he shot the (GRATEFUL!) General in Hell Bent after four and a half billion years of torture he was breaking every code he'd ever lived by.

Yeah, like Hartnell would have LEFT A BORING NOTE (claiming he's bored WHICH IS A LIE) when Sexy nicked him. Not to mention that 'It was not entirely clear when the note was left or how long the TARDIS had been gone' is contradicted by the fact that HE'S SPOTTED STEALING THE TARDIS in Name of the Doctor.

There are 'possibly millions' of humans stranded on the War Games planet since WHEN!

'My continued freedom is a small thing to give up in exchange for the unfulfilled lives of the humans trapped here' - yeah, because they're gonna be living such long rich fulfilled lives IN THE TRENCHES OF WORLD WAR ONE. And yeah, cos it's only your freedom you're gambling, not your LIFE or Jamie and Zoe's MINDS.

'Of course, you already know about the Daleks' - they do? Why the hell did they NEVER MENTION 'EM TO THE DOCTOR during his four-hundred-odd years on Gallifrey, then?

'Given the chance, I am sure [Azmael] would have continued in academia all his lives' - what, instead of running off to rule a planet, you mean? And, er, how was he denied this chance, exactly?

'I ask that his name be entered into the Gallifreyan Book of Heroes' - yeah, who HASN'T kidnapped a few kids and nearly wiped out the galaxy by bombarding it with slug-eggs, anyway?

'And that his surviving Data Extract be uploaded to the APC Net' - you need the TIME LORD to be lying on Engin's couch to get uploaded, not their stupid giant colour-coded data extracts.

Ol' Sixie (after regurgitating his 'ten million years' speech): 'You seem to have decided you don't want me as President, and that's fine' - really? Which bit of Gallifrey having a revolution to stop him being stitched up* made him feel so unloved? Or was it the Inquisitor begging him to stand for the Presidency?

'But at least appoint someone who can sort it out. Or if you can't find such a person on Gallifrey, then you know where I am' - aren't we forgetting him (admittedly bizarrely) suggesting the Inquisitor is the perfect Pres? In fact, aren't we forgetting that when faced with the presidency, any TRUE Doctor runs very fast in the opposite direction? (Even when that means abandoning all the supporters who stuck their necks out for him to the mercy of a returning insane immortal vengeful Rassilon?)

'But whatever the reason for the Doctor's continuing fascination with our planet' - oh, he doesn't fancy dropping us a note to explain it then? How disappointing.

'It may also comfort you to know that I have not forgotten the happy time I spent with you and Louis' writes the Doctor to 'My dear Antonia' (Marie-Antoinette) - yeah, if I was just about to get my neck severed by Madame Guillotine it would be a MASSIVE comfort to know that some git WHO KNEW THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN BUT DIDN'T MENTION IT had enjoyed my doomed hospitality. While France was starving about us.

Gods, but that's one disgusting letter Ten writes Harriet Jones (or would be if I believed for one moment that ANY of this stuff is canonical) telling her that 'you did well. Right up until the end...Your [second chance] is that you finally get some time for yourself, some time to do what you want to do.'

Ditto for his alleged last letter to the Brig he can't be bothered to go and see, wailing that 'I doubt I thanked you or showed much appreciation' and condescendingly assuring him that 'If it's any crumb of comfort, know that I am thinking of you' - YUCK.

Oh, and it's ALISTAIR not Alastair. Admittedly I can hardly criticise TOO heavily when the Lethbridge-Stewart novels themselves are a little confused on this issue...

And the TENTH Doctor says it's 'a couple of lifetimes probably' since he's seen the Brig? The War Doctor seems an unlikely candidate. As does Eight, unless you believe the godawful Minuet in Hell audio or the rather fun Dying Days novel, both of which have been utterly decanonised by New Who.

And why doesn't Ten just GO AND SEE HIM instead of writing godawful letters?

Susan is NINETY-SEVEN?!

To be continued...

*Well, to stop having to watch Trial of a Time Lord anyway.

Time Lord Letters continued:

Love the way that, after the 'Planet Earth' chapter, we have a chapter entitled 'Coal Hill School' (is there something unexpected that Class is going to reveal to us about its actual location?). Less amused by the fact that, a few pages in, said chapter ceases to have anything whatsoever to do with everyone's favourite comprehensive.

'My dear Dodo, Forgive me for not saying goodbye. But by the time you wake up and read this, I hope I shall be on my way' - aren't we forgetting something?! Like, THE ACTUAL EVENTS OF THE WAR MACHINES?

'That cad the Toymaker' - seriously? It's the sort of (awful) thing Pertwee could easily have said, but I can't picture Hartnell doing it, somehow.

My gods, what an inane, vomit-inducing bedtime story Eleven (allegedly) leaves for George. 'Everyone is loved'? Doesn't he remember his own barn-ridden childhood?

I've said far worse about the stupid-accented genocidal loser, but I find it hard to believe that the Tenth Doctor would call Rattigan anything as vicious and class-ridden as 'an unpleasant little oik' so soon after he sacrificed his life.

'A quiet and reserved woman' - VICTORIA? She's LEGENDARILY noisy. Just ask the Weed-Creature.

'Victoria took a while to adapt to the rather hectic life on board the TARDIS' - nonsense, she was shooting Cybermats in a miniskirt within hours of joining the TARDIS. If anything she adapted LESS as time went by.

'I owe your father a lot. I owe him my life, and just as important I owe him the time that i have spent with you' - JUST AS IMPORTANT!!

'Jamie can be quite tiresome sometimes, can't he?' - TRAITOR!!!

Anyone else cringing at the sight of the Doctor annotating a catalogue mentioning Van Gogh dying at 37 with the helpful words 'So sad'?

What the hell is the Second Doctor DOING, leaving a letter on the Database of Condolences set up to mourn Dastari and co? His visit to that space station was SUPPOSED to be TOP SECRET!

'In summary: Doctor and deputies Rory and Amy resigning' - Rory wasn't a Deputy Marshal!

'Halpen (and his predecessors) were genetically altering the Ood' - GENETICALLY altering...?

'It cannot have been easy caring for poor George [Cranleigh] these past months' - yeah, falsely accusing people of all those murders is a REAL STRAIN. 'But, under the circumstances, perhaps his death is a merciful relief' - yeah, but pointing out that fact TO HIS MOTHER quite so soon...not tactful.

'The destruction of her planet by an entropy cloud' - an entropy CLOUD?

'You're right, the Vanir need your help if they are to break free of Terminus Incorporated and set up a proper hospital facility where they can treat and cure the Lazars' - why the hell is the Doctor info-dumping at Nyssa like this?

Oh SURE Eccy would have sent Jackie and baby-Rose a 'Deepest Sympathy' card on Pete's death...

Oh dear gods. Sixie is writing to H G Wells to tell him not to tell Timelash exactly how it was - 'dress it up a bit. Improvise. Embellish. It it's possible, make the story even more exciting and thrilling' - EVEN MORE exciting and thrilling than TIMELASH? SURELY such a thing is just not possible...

'Helped Lethbridge-Stewart defeat the Great Intelligence and its robot Yeti' 'With the Doctor's help, the [Nestene-Master] plan was foiled by UNIT' - aren't we getting things the wrong way round, here?

'Don't think badly of him, any more than I do' the Doctor advises Michael Smith's mother. Well OF COURSE she won't. She's a repulsive racist too.

'But if we were to execute [the Master] for his crimes, then surely we are descending to the same level' - er...so if you take the ONLY WAY of ensuring someone won't destroy your planet, you're just as bad as the would-be planet-destroyer? Yeah, right.

'I suppose also that I'm sad our partnership is coming to an end' - SAD? You were BLOODY HEARTBROKEN as you drove away from Jo's engagement. 'For you the best times are still to come' - come OFF it!

'The [Daemons] church was eventually rebuilt, helped in no small part by a substantial contribution from a Doctor John Smith' - the Doctor is a stinking-rich god-bothering philanthropist. You heard it here first.

'I know that Canon Smallwood was forced to retire through ill health' - SERIOUSLY, Doctor? Cos those of us who aren't CONGENIAL IDIOTS know that THE MASTER MURDERED HIM.

'I hope I shall find time to return to Devil's End some time soon to see how the renovation work is progressing' - yeah, cos if ANYTHING characterises Our Hero it's his willingness to stick around overseeing the clearing up of his latest adventure...oh, wait...

Davison can't write proper 's's or 'f's?

'Discovered amongst the Doctor's papers after he finally severed connections with UNIT' - and, er, when exactly DID he finally sever connections with UNIT? (Obviously some time after Death in Heaven: 'Welcome to the only place in the universe where we get to say this: He's on the payroll.')

'IF LITTLE IS KNOWN ABOUT THE DOCTOR, PERHAPS EVEN LESS IS KNOWN ABOUT HIS TARDIS' this declares, before going on to tell us all about the TARDIS in excruciating detail.

'In his first incarnation, however, the Doctor eschewed even a sonic screwdriver, often relying on more antiquated technology' - 'eschewing' implies deliberation, whereas he just hadn't thought of it yet. And I'd hardly call his magic ring antiquated, it's about the most high-tech thing in the Whoniverse.

The Doctor folded a note to Garron round the underside of the rock he swapped for the jethrik? SERIOUSLY?

'The Second Doctor often referred to and updated his 500-year diary' - I don't remember him ever updating it?

'It's a long story, but this egg will have used to be Blon Fel Fotch Pasameer-Day Slitheen. Yeah, I know, but don't hold the fact she was a Slitheen against her' - jeez, the ENTIRE POINT of Boom Town was that Blon's new parents WOULDN'T know she was a bloody Slitheen!

'His friend Martha Jones posed as a maid at the school' - POSED AS? She was just PRETENDING to scrub those floors, was she?

'The Doctor gave this letter to Martha...Martha never had time to give Smith the letter before he was forced to become the Doctor again' - come off it. We've all seen the message the Doctor RECORDED for Martha...

Project: Valhalla:

Rather dull, rather pointless.

'Mark Bradley, 12 months' active service with the Devonshire and Dorsets. Got into a spot of bother with live ammunition and some civilians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Dishonourable discharge not an option, transfer immediate to Department C4' - this is BRITAIN, you don't just get to massacre some civilians and get a TRANSFER.

And it's odd, given that this interminable prologue is seen mainly through this guy's eyes, that he doesn't seem to have any feelings one way or another about what he's just done.

'Frith's tone didn't change, still betraying the vaguely disinterested quality it had held since he walked into the room' 'Frith grinned widely, the first hint of an emotion beyond abject tedium Bradley had seen since they'd met' - there's a wide gulf between vague disinterest and abject tedium, y'know.

'The skin was the colour of rancid milk, dead flesh bleached of any tone or warmth. Thin, cracked lips, so bloodless as to be blue, curled into a grimace...the voice grated, as if he was gargling razor blades' etc etc...it's REALLY odd that this vampire got away with calling himself Sir William and openly running Government Departments...(and how soon did the Doc encounter him in Project: Twilight? Was his failure to notice that Amelia and her chums were vampires EVEN STUPIDER than it ALREADY looked?)

Ex-military Deputy-Director Crichton? Not related to UNIT's not-very-promising Colonel Crichton, I hope?

'He'd lost count of the number of farmers he'd treated when one of their reindeer turned suddenly and gouged out an eye' - ah yes, the good old traditional Who-novel eye-gouging...(Are reindeer really that vicious? Shouldn't these people stop using them?)

'Was it strictly ethical?' - SERIOUSLY? Is it strictly ethical to drug and mind-alter your prisoner? 'Come to that, did she even care?' - of course not, she's been working for the Forge for YEARS, why the hell is she even thinking about ethics NOW?

'With Corporal French's promotion and transfer to ICIS' - haaang on, wasn't ICIS toppled by the Brig in the first five minutes of it trying to take over from UNIT, in, um, that UNIT: The Coup freebie audio?

'Mercifully, the engine fired. He breathed out in relief. He was safe' - not if the killer-zombie's right behind you, you aren't (NB: of course it is).

'All the retching was bringing up was thick, crimson phlegm' - look, I had enough of this sort of thing to last me a LIFETIME in Tochwood: Something in the Water.

'Dann took the stick [of chewing-gum] gratefully, folded it in half and put it in his mouth. The look on his face told Frith he'd rather be eating a cockroach'- so, er, why was he grateful?

So Crumpton's a medical doctor, a technician, a chief science officer, has survived 'countless' Forge alien-harvesting missions which suggests that she's superhumanly good at surviving...? (Plus, she gets addressed as 'Doctor' all the time which is REALLY getting on my nerves. There is only ONE Doctor in the universe.)

'There was no way he was risking either of the two remaining choppers in a pointless rescue mission' - but he's happy to risk his men? (And yes they are all men despite being commanded by a woman, oddly.)

Aristedes carries her rife unloaded in this killer-zombie-situation?

'I'm sure Frith can handle a few ghouls. He does't need me to hold his hand' - which bit of Frith saying 'We're outnumbered. Even if we could drop them with one shot, we'll run out of ammo before we run out of zombies. We're going to get our arses kicked' did Cassie somehow not understand?

'As the creature rose up, Frith threw the useless rifle to one side and raised his one good arm, really to fend off the rain of pummelling blows' - would't the rifle at least be better than an arm for such a purpose?

The ship uses radiation to mutate the local populace to provide a workforce with the knowledge to effect the necessary repairs - so, um, why are they all zombies hellbent on ripping everyone's guts out then?

Pretty stupid of Crumpton to abandon her gun-belt because the gun is digging into her hip, I thought she was the great survivor?

'Whole galaxies uniting to destroy this thing' - presumably not OUR galaxy - cos it would be the first I'D heard of it - so why did the monster's ship happen to drift into this galaxy and land on EARTH EARTH EARTH IT'S ALWAYS SODDING EARTH.

'Embedded core directives can only be countermanded at director level' - oh-kay, so wouldn't PHONING THE DIRECTOR be a good idea at this point? Also, is the Forge REALLY so stupid that it can't grasp the fact it might occasionally be more sensible to destroy an alien menace than to attempt to harvest it? How the hell has such an organisation lasted so long, they're stupider than Torchwood on a Stupid Day.

Nyathoggoth coped with alien blood from loads of different galaxies but can't cope with the stupid Twilight virus?

Hang on, one minute Nimrod's in such poor shape he has to be practically carried down the corridor by a couple of colleagues, the next minute - after a brutal beating - he's strong enough to carry Cassie?

So Cassie breaks through the false memories to recall what really happened with Evelyn Smythe, but not that she HAS A SON or anything? (OK, so who DOESN'T prefer Evelyn to Hex, but then none of us are Hex's MUM.)

'Across Crighton's picture flashed the legend "TERMINATION ORDER APPROVED"' - is there anyone in the universe who didn't see this coming a mile off? Anyone aside from Crighton's colleagues at the Forge, who actually thought that because his helicopter managed to take off without anything bad happening, he was totally going to become the first person to retire peacefully from this savage insane alien-harvesting top-secret organisation, bless thier naive little hearts...

Ooh, the creature that devours planets is STILL AROUND after the explosion!

Um, why hasn't it eaten Earth yet then?

'The skin was the colour of rancid milk, dead flesh bleached of any tone or warmth. Thin, cracked lips, so bloodless as to be blue, curled into a grimace...the voice grated, as if he was gargling razor blades' etc etc...it's REALLY odd that this vampire got away with calling himself Sir William and openly running Government Departments...

Nothing a good use of makeup couldn't conceal. After all, if Scaroth could pass himself off as human nobility, how hard can it be for a vampire to do the same?

'He'd lost count of the number of farmers he'd treated when one of their reindeer turned suddenly and gouged out an eye' - ah yes, the good old traditional Who-novel eye-gouging...(Are reindeer really that vicious? Shouldn't these people stop using them?)

Well, they're not vicious, but they do all have those pointy antlers on their heads that can get you by surprise if they move suddenly. That being said, I have seen many documentaries about the people who raise reindeer, and I have yet to see one wearing an eye patch, or something.

'As the creature rose up, Frith threw the useless rifle to one side and raised his one good arm, really to fend off the rain of pummelling blows' - would't the rifle at least be better than an arm for such a purpose?

Yes, and soldiers are trained to use them in this fashion.

After all, if Scaroth could pass himself off as human nobility, how hard can it be for a vampire to do the same?

That's DIFFERENT. Julian Glover is just so...urbane. Hilarious. Adorable.

I have seen many documentaries about the people who raise reindeer

Good god. How do you find time for THAT as well as Who and acquiring in-depth knowledge about, well, EVERYTHING?

Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse by James Goss, illustrated by Russell T God Himself:

To be honest, plenty of us Nitcentrallers have rustled up rhymes better than most of these (well, not 'Waiting for a Friend' obviously...*sob* and maybe 'Skipping Song' and 'Shortness of Breath') but DAMMIT those little cartoon figures are adorable, RTG truly is Renaissance Man.

Judging by that picture of Harriet Jones Former Prime Minster dropping through a trapdoor onto a motorbike...SOMEONE'S conscience is troubling Him. (I don't s'pose it's canon, though...)

'When I was One/I was not much fun' - SUCH a lie! (Or am I being unduly influenced by Twice Upon a Time?)

I note poor War is missing from the list of Doctors, AGAIN. (Plus it even has 'When I was Nine/I fought time' even though War not Eccy was the Time War Doctor (the clue is in the NAME).)

(Just to add insult to injury, the bloody VALEYARD gets mentioned later...)

'The Queen took/The Doctor/And brought her to/His Majesty' - I was honestly about to nitpick the 'her' until the penny dropped...

DID Troughton go weak-kneed at the sight of Ann Travers? She's no Astrid.

What - the - ••••!! is Missy doing holding a BABY?

'Miss Jo Grant/Never said "shan't"/That's why she won all life's prizes' - I'd hardly call SEVEN KIDS all life's prizes. Also, she was ALWAYS saying 'Shan't' to going off in the TARDIS, the spoilsport.

'I like to let him cheat at chess' - no you don't you lying pile of tin, you're always meanly catching Tom when he tries to cheat.

'Sand, stairs and mud are just nopes' - nonsense, he can get up and down stairs NO problem in the SJA!

It's Gandhi not 'Ghandi'.

The bloody OSGOODS make the Companion list (Zygon SCUM!) but not Benton n'Yates?

Just a quick plug for this:

http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2018/01/time-shadows-second-nature.html

I wrote the 11-part framing story for this anthology, The Heart of Inomasp. It features 5 Doctors (4, 7, 8, 9 and 12) and is somewhat of a shaggy dog story revolving around the loss of the Doctor's ring (well, one of them, not the one 12 wore and which fell off when he regenerated into 13).

Inomasp itself is three things - an ancient warlord, a criminal genius, and a wonky computer program.

At the heart of the story is Proxitine Besesh-Delta-Sidian, the criminal genius in question, a ruthless if somewhat insecure woman who encounters the Doctor across five of his incarnations.

There's a brilliant 'Mind Probe' joke and a whole section ripped off, er, inspired by, one of my favourite films, The Long Good Friday.

It's the most insane thing I've ever written (at one point it went completely out of control and was almost scrapped!) but I think it hangs together. They liked it enough to make it the framing story!

Cheers

Nick

'The Queen took/The Doctor/And brought her to/His Majesty' - I was honestly about to nitpick the 'her' until the penny dropped...

Russell T God in DWM: 'These were drawn in March but there are fleeting references to a female Doctor in there. I'm very pleased with that. I guessed right. I didn't know I was right, but I thought that was in the air.' -

Oh, and: 'They literally emailed me in the week I decided to start drawing again...I thought of all those other marvellous illustrators I was doing out of work - and laughed!'

'Ace would become the first non-Gallifreyan to win acceptance into the Prydon Academy on Gallifrey, there to train as a Time Lord' - why in hell's name is this trying to canonise Death Comes to Time?

Alas, not just Death Comes to Time. Infinity Doctors: 'Military Intelligence informs me that not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords.' 'Quite correct. And not all Time Lords are Gallifreyans, although the vast majority are.'

*Sigh*