Backwards in time
It’s precisely at this moment, again and again, that I’m catapulted backwards in time.
As the preamble ends (in this episode, the shop assistant, working late and alone, pulls back the curtain on the change cubicle, having received no response to her “are you alright in there?” only to reveal the looming, unmistakeable metallic form of, yes, a cyberman) and the opening titles and theme tune kick in, it feels as though the decades contract.
When that 1950s era blue Police Box begins its rotation through the vortex, propulsive bass, four-four tempo, and squalling synth underscoring its apparently eternal passage, I might as well be eight years old again, as sitting here, close to fifty, flanked by my own children, seven and nine, watching Doctor Who.
Parenthood elasticates time.
During the early
