Sod's Law

He didn't play on that song though. They had about five different keyboardists during their run.

Both rumours could be true. Hunt chooses to resign after hearing about the limited leeway he has to cut taxes in the next budget, so Sunak just says 'sod it' and calls an election to jump ahead of his resignation (which would seriously damage his government and make it look even weaker if that was announced first).

I love collecting the commemorative ones (both UK and overseas), especially the ones that reflect historical events. I have several coronation coins and medallions including one from 1789 that commemorates George III's recovery from his bout of madness. My brother also got me a Lundy Island puffin coin last Christmas which was a great surprise.

I listen to the history ones like Dan Snow's History Hit. Not a lot of schoolboy giggling and politician sabre waving in those, though I'll accept I probably don't represent the typical podcast audience. In terms of spoonfeeding propaganda, I don't really see how even the podcasts you describe are any worse than older people who only read newspapers that confirm their own views, and at least they're not just swallowing what some Murdoch type figure wants them to think.

Yeah, I miss all the conspiracies about crop circles, Elvis being alive and the Royal Family being lizards. The fun harmless conspiracies, like you would have seen covered in the early days of Snopes.

Didn't Futurama sort of do that first?

Maybe she started out as a lab experiment herself which is why she has no next of kin, and Twist and Dobson are basically scientists monitoring her in the background. Or her whole life is part of some Truman Show-esque delusion with Twist and Dobson as the director and producer of a TV show about Ruby (her very first appearance in the show is her being filmed for a TV show with Davina McCall, after all). Or it could be both.

Is it fair to say I've also never met a Tim who wasn't the kind of middle management golf-playing suburbanite who could bore the toes off a sloth? And my middle name was butchered to make those Brayden, Jayden-style names, so part of me dies inside when I hear them.

Abraham Lincoln's dog was apparently called 'Fido' (comes from the Latin word for 'loyal'), and another stereotypical dog's name 'Rover' comes from a popular short film from the early 1900's ('Rescued by Rover', a sort of precursor to 'Lassie' featuring a heroic collie). Guess they're both too cliche to be taken seriously these days.

I'm still wondering who Anita Dobson is meant to be and if she has a part to play in all of this. I'm guessing the hooded figure at the church would be too obvious a guess though.

I have a decent commemorative coin collection (mainly I pillage local coin shops and market stalls and see what takes my fancy) from the UK and abroad but I generally make it my mission not to buy two of the same. Really don't understand people who buy multiple of the same coin. Who has the space?

I've still not seen any apart from the coronation commemorative coin I ordered direct from the Royal Mint.

Same with Alfie. So many dogs these days seem to be called Alfie, I'm starting to see it as a dog's name and I'm taken aback when I hear parents call their kids that name in public.

My favourite episode this year so far. I could tell this was a Moffat episode even if I'd never seen his name in the credits. Those darker themes and the to-and-fro wisecracking dialogue, and this was also Ncuti's time to shine showing off his 'serious Doctor' side. Felt like one of the greats all round.

And if he's betting on a Trump win in the US to galvanise the right in the UK, I think he's extremely mistaken. A Biden win wouldn't shift the polls here that much, but I reckon in the event of a Trump victory, people here would be more likely to see the chaos unfolding in America and think 'no more, please'.

The only consolation is that they won't be sitting for more than half that time. Summer recess will be here in no time, then two weeks after that ends, it's conference season, Sunak will be out of the country schmoozing with other Commonwealth heads of government, and then an election campaign. So once you get to summer (fingers crossed) there's just not enough time for them to do any more damage.

Wonder if it's the same person behind those Conservative Party election campaign parody posters from back in 2010? The ones that featured David Cameron's massive head next to a sentence like 'I love the NHS so much, I want to cut it into little pieces and give it to all my friends'?

If he dies, some other even worse hardliner from his government will probably take the reins of power and start cracking down on any 'extremists' belonging to any political persuasion they don't like. I hope he lives for that reason.

What's the butterfly there for?

There's barely been a day in the past several years where I haven't looked at the news, seen what passes for parliamentary debate these days and not had quotes from Cromwell booming in my head.

Just how long can he get away with repeating that 'working assumption' line about the date of the general election when he is literally the only person in the country with the power to decide EXACTLY when it'll be? What a tosspot.

Agree on Devil's Chord which is why I sort of think it should have been the starting episode (when the Doctor is introducing Ruby to the idea of travelling anywhere in time and space and she picks the Beatles as her first choice). It had more of the kind of energy to it that would draw new viewers in. But I guess that wouldn't fit in with the RTD template of 'future episode first, historical second'. My only real niggle with Ruby in the Christmas special was how quickly she seemed to accept 'OK, goblins have stolen my foster sister' right before she was thrust into the heat of things. As I said, I love how she interacts with Ncuti and you're right that more about her will be unveiled as the season goes on, but I think she would have made more sense as a companion who had an Amy Pond kind of backstory with the Doctor (like him visiting her during childhood so she's already acquainted with who he is to some degree).

Yeah, don't worry. Even I'm not so sad that I'll sit up in bed at one in the morning posting Dr Who episode synopses on a website dedicated to waiting for people to snuff it.

Unfortunately every one of my news feeds will be chock full of spoilers so there's no way I'll be able to put it off for too long unless I throw my phone away in a drawer for the full day. And Doctor Who just doesn't feel like something you watch over breakfast on a Saturday morning.