Alex has spotted that there’s a red button preview currently running on Freeview channel 302, with clips from throughout the new series of Doctor Who.

My digital reception is rather poor at present (cable coming in two weeks!), so I’m delighted to see (thanks to Jim) that the whole marvellous clip is on the Freema Agyeman fansite. Beware minor spoilers, and prepare to be excited.

And in case you hadn’t noticed: David Tennant returns in Doctor Who this Saturday at 7pm on BBC One.

Thanks to the marvellous BBC programme catalogue prototype, you can – assuming you’re, er, not too old – see what was on TV on the day you were born, and even, if you know your time of birth, at the very moment you entered the world.

My mum was missing out on Sunday Worship: I, Where Are We Now? on BBC1 and an Open University programme on BBC2.

The link you need is in the format http://open.bbc.co.uk/catalogue/infax/on_this_day/yyyy/mm/dd where yyyy is the full year, mm is the month in two digits (e.g., 04 for April), and dd for the day.

From this we can see that the newly-thirtysomething Stephen Tall has the privilege of being born on the day the fourth episode of the fantastic Doctor Who story The Talons of Weng-Chiang first aired, while today’s birthday boy Duncan had the pleasure of a budget reply party political broadcast from the SDP/Liberal Alliance featuring Roy Jenkins.

Only one of these TV programmes featured a giant rat. I leave you to guess which 🙂

If so, please feel free to vist Bonhams and buy me some of these rather cool costumes from Doctor Who and the James Bond and Carry On films. (Via.)

It snowed overnight. Unlike some, I’m not a fan. It looks nice enough, but once I start trudging around in it my feet get wet, then cold; the snow melts and refreezes as slippery ice and, as I plod around in my permeable, gripless shoes, I tend to end up on ground, getting even wetter.

The snow did seem to have emptied the bus this morning, which was useful as it also prevented me from repeating yesterday’s walk to work along the south bank of the Thames – no doubt it would have picturesque, but my feet would have been like ice after an hour of that.

Yesterday’s trek, despite being the coldest day of the year that far, was great though. From Southwark Cathedral along to the Palace of Westminster, the route is full of London landmarks: St Paul’s Cathedral, the Gherkin, the Globe, Tate Modern, the London Eye. I passed someone spraying graffiti on a wall near the NFT right next to a group of contractors cleaning graffiti from the next wall along. Such is London.

My plan was to reward my healthy, bracing stroll with a McBreakfast at County Hall (once home of the GLC, now of MSG). When I got there though, it wasn’t yet open, so my fitness regime (such as it is) was unmarred.

I crossed Westminster Bridge, scene of two iconic Doctor Who moments, unable to resist the temptation to play the accompanying incidental music to the latest of those on my iPod as I did. This made me happier than is perhaps normal.

Finally, I reached College Green and passed top TV actor Robert Lindsay (or was it Tony Blair?). Which was cool.