A few weeks ago something resembling a small oil derrick appeared on the vacant plot of land adjacent to my house where the next phase of the moobaan is to be built. Realising that it was unlikely that they’d be drilling for oil in Bangkok I surmised the contraption was a pile-driver. A few days later, when the pounding started, I was proven right. Over the next few days, every time I looked up, the “derrick” was closer. I never saw it move, just its inexorable approach. I was reminded of nothing so much as a weeping angel.

(Weeping angels, which resemble stone angel statues from a Victorian cemetery, are malevolent beings which feed off the potential time energy of their victims. They turn to stone when observed, but move swiftly when not looked at. They featured in a recent docudrama, Doctor Who.)

Personally, I’m not a great fan of the Doctor Who revival, though the episode “Blink” featuring the weeping angels was quite exceptional; trying to put a story into a single episode doesn’t allow for the same development and complexity of the older series. Yesterday I watched “Revenge of the Cybermen”, a four-parter from 1975 with Tom Baker as the Doctor. 35 years on and it’s still captivating. Has any other programme from this era survived so well? This was surely the golden age of Doctor Who.

(Note to self: move sofa three feet forward to provide space to hide.)

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