Its all about ‘quality. Innit. As in ‘equality’ but pronounced in a more East Luunduun, or Sarf Luunduun, or even west Essex kind’a way. And there’s nothing wrong with equality. The director general of the CBI is a woman. The head of the Metropolitan Police is a woman. The Prime Minister is mostly a woman. And even Miss World is a woman.

So why not Doctor Who?

I’ll tell you why; because Doctor Who is a man. Always been a man, always will be a man. Except, obviously, when she’s a woman. So that’s straight. The total cop-out of the entire history of Doctor Who is that every few years he (now /she) gets reborn. Reincarnated. Recreated. Re-booted. That way you never got tired of seeing the same ole Doctor every series. And now they’ve taken a woman, given her blond hair, and called her the Doc.

And I for one… really don’t give a shit. Because since series 3 I haven’t watched it, and if I never see another episode it won’t affect my life in any way at all.

Nothing monumental or offensive or emotional happened in series 3. In fact nothing monumental, offensive or emotional happened before or after it. And that was the problem. On series 3 I just gave up watching because nothing had happened, nothing was happening and nothing was likely to happen in the foreseeable. It was dull. Which is forgivable. But being stupidly childish and daft isn’t. The plots were stupid, the baddies laughable and the ‘scary bits’ would pretty much send you to sleep. In a warm, peaceful way. It always looked as if it was made in the producer’s garage using any bits and pieces he had lying around as ‘props’ and ‘special effects’. You can film an old metal dustbin seven ways to hell, its still a fucking dustbin. Even if you call it a ‘Dalek’.

And this was 1963. I was 7 years old and already had learned to expect much more than Doctor Who could offer, even if the alternatives were Bruce Forsyth on ITV or a documentary on steelworkers’ haircuts on BBC2. I loved the old Batman series, for fuck sake. How discerning could I have been?

Roger Federer is definitely a man. No question. And from being ‘the best player of his generation’, he is now widely accepted as probably ‘the best player ever’. Yet now he’s seemed to have become ‘the best sportsman ever’, which is another kettle of herrings altogether. By tomorrow he’ll be ‘the most important person who ever lived’. Move over Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Beethoven, Watson & Crick and Ronald McDonald, there’s a new kid in town and yesterday he earned more than the lot of you did in your combined lifetimes. Except Ronald, of course.

Happy Monday

A xxxx