Terry and Relative Dimensions in Space

Being a long time Doctor Who fan I have often pondered what I would do if I owned a TARDIS. Notwithstanding what rooms I would have in a seemingly infinite interior I wouldn’t necessarily put a time machine to good use.

Some people would happily go back in time and explore Victorian England, having tea with Charles Dickens or heading off to the Great Exhibition. I’d probably end up in one of the many Gin houses, half cut on potentially toxic spirits and singing bawdy songs around the ‘old Joanna’.

In others hands they might steer the time travelling craft into the future a few hundred years to see what Earth will be like. Although you’ll have to bear in mind that, if these global warming disciples are right, you’ll need to take some shorts and sun cream, and maybe some flippers so you can get around East Anglia because the sea will have reclaimed the land by then. Mind you, the locals of East Anglia are ahead of the game on this count and have already evolved webbed feet for just this eventuality. 

Leave a TARDIS in my hands though and it’d be wasted on me. I don’t want to go back and see what life was like during the industrial revolution. It was grim and miserable. I’ve read about it in books. I don’t want to be standing on the beaches of Hastings in 1066 because for one thing, I’ll probably be stood in the wrong place and, secondly, if I do happen to be stood with a good view of the battle I’ll probably end up with an arrow in my eye rather than that of the intended regal recipient. 

I’d just play it safe, maybe just go back 30 years or so to a time I remember. I can wander round the Isle of Wight reminding myself of all the shops and places I used to go to when I was a kid. Actually, this is a bad example. The Isle of Wight has changed so little in 30 years I could do that now without the aid of a time machine.

Seriously though, I’d probably just swan back to 1982 and go on a pub crawl because I didn’t use to do that sort of thing when I was 8 years old, or go to the cinema to watch ET the first time around as my parents wouldn’t take me when I was a kid.

I might go further back I suppose, I could head back to 1964 to catch up on the episodes of Doctor Who that were shown but are now lost from the BBC archive. Honestly, I’d use a time machine to go back in time to watch a creaky 1960s TV show about an old man with a time machine. This marvellous contraption is wasted in my hands I tell you.

I suppose I could go back and find myself from the past to give myself some wise advice but, even though it’s just me talking to me as a child, it still seems a bit creepy. Not that I’d be prepared to listen to myself anyway, I’d still make the same mistakes.

“Seriously, listen to me, don’t get that racing bike because although it looks cool and everyone else has got one you’ll never get the hang of the gears and your chain will fall off all the time. Oh, and you shouldn’t buy those red jeans, but if you really must, don’t wear them with that yellow shirt. Oh, and don’t pick GCSE Music as an option because the girl you fancy who plays the flute doesn’t fancy you and you’ll have gone off her by the time the new school year starts”.

So it seems my best bet would be to go back a few weeks and buy that EuroMillions ticket with the winning numbers. Which, when you think about it, seems a bit pointless when I could probably get more if I just flogged the TARDIS instead.

I'm a fool to myself.