PLATELL’S PEOPLE: Dr Who needs to stop the wokery… or it’s time to exterminate 

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Back in the 1960s, when Doctor Who first appeared on TV at our home in Australia, my big brother Michael turned a cardboard box into a Dalek costume, taped it round himself, grabbed two brooms for killer arms and chased me shouting: ‘Exterminate!’

Terrified as I was, Mum reassured me that the Daleks were the villains, and the Doctor would always win.

For almost 60 years (apart from a hiatus between 1989 and 2005), the Time Lord’s antics have been enjoyed around the world: a compelling mixture of fantasy and escapism, loved by children and adults alike.

But all that has gone terribly wrong. In the past three series, the writers saw fit to have the first female Doctor — played by Jodie Whittaker — investigating injustices surrounding the partition of India, meeting civil rights icon Rosa Parks and even witnessing apparent digs at Brexit, instead of exploring the universe.

For me and clearly for millions of viewers, however, perhaps the most inappropriate moment was when one plot featured men on a spaceship giving birth. My mum would be turning in her grave.

Doctor Who has clearly become ‘Doctor How’. As in: ‘Doctor, how can they possibly have thought this was a good idea?’ 

There’s a trusty slogan for any business that chases tedious Left-wing themes of social justice instead of doing what we pay them to do. ‘Get woke, go broke.’

Sure enough, by March last year, Doctor Who was suffering its lowest audience figures since its revival 15 years earlier. No blame is to be placed on the shoulders of Jodie, 39, a fine actress handed dud scripts.

And, though some grumbled, I was glad when we got a female Doctor: about time we gals showed we can fight the baddies, too.

And yet those viewing figures should be a woke-up call for the BBC. Whatever Auntie’s modish scriptwriters and producers think, most of us don’t want to see our most treasured family show becoming a vehicle for PC propaganda.

Will Auntie listen? I have my doubts: favourite to play the Doctor next is pop star and gay rights campaigner Olly Alexander, who once admitted to having a crush on Jeremy Corbyn. 

The BBC has to sort it out — or the main thing facing extermination is this TV classic.

Researchers conclude that to truly bond with your cat you must read the facial expressions. 

If the moggy’s ears flatten or it swishes its tail, that means: leave me alone. 

Those researchers at Nottingham Trent University must be dog owners. If I make an unwanted advance to my Ted, he just bites me.

Widow Scarlett is in the black 

With a reported fortune of £118 million, Scarlett Johansson is now suing Disney, claiming the movie giant breached her contract for her latest superhero flick. 

Scarlett is unhappy with the £14 million she’s been paid for blockbuster Black Widow, and is convinced she’s due another £35 million or so. 

Whatever the merits of the case, us Aussies know nothing is deadlier than a redback spider, aka the Australian black widow. This one sure is living up to her name. 

How real life tweets wowed social media

Amateur YouTuber John Chadwick, from Loughborough, has racked up more than 40 million views on the site after posting videos of his tits.

No, not his man boobs, but the fledgling blue tits that hatched in the bird box John installed in his back garden during lockdown.

Millions have watched the chicks hatch then finally fly the nest, which just proves you don’t have to post content full of hate to become a social media sensation.

As The X Factor becomes The Ex Factor, I’m reminded of the days when the judges were the dream team: Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and Louis Walsh. 

Back then, it was talent that mattered, not the producers’ latter obsession: the dreary sob stories of the contestants. 

As Louis rightly said once: ‘I don’t care if they’re singing for their dead nan or if they’ve only got one lung: no one’s going to buy your record for that.’

Nor, as it turned out, watch the show.

Targeting toddlers is tawdry 

Ahead of his tasteless satirical cartoon The Prince, in which Wills and Kate’s oldest boy George, eight, is portrayed as a spoilt, foul-mouthed, Martini-drinking child tyrant, writer Gary Janetti says: ‘I hope that he would find it funny and have a sense of humour about it . . . that it is meant with affection.’

Neither of George’s siblings escape Gary’s poison pen, either — even little Louis, three, is depicted as a ‘thuggish enforcer’.

When did toddlers — even royal ones — become legitimate targets for grown-up satirists chasing ratings? There’s only one thug I can see, and it’s not the youngest occupant of Kensington Palace.

On your bike, coward! 

Gutless cyclist Ermir Loka jumped a red light and knocked down 72-year-old Peter McCombie, leaving the pensioner with catastrophic head injuries. 

Instead of helping his dying victim, Loka screamed at the elderly man: ‘Look what you have done!’ before fleeing.

Coward Loka, 23, who was here in Britain illegally, said he was more concerned about avoiding the police. 

After sentencing, he spent just one day in prison before being released (having served half his two-year sentence on remand), and is supposedly facing deportation ‘within weeks’.

As we know, thanks to the human rights industry, Britain’s feeble extradition process and Left-wing lawyers, true deportations happen rarely. RIP Peter.

Rowing duo are oarsome

After mum-of-three Helen Glover and her teammate Polly Swann missed a bronze medal by a whisker in the women’s rowing pairs this week, Helen, 35, said: ‘You can do anything you want to do. Trying and failing is no problem, as long as you try.’

To those true words, I might add Theodore Roosevelt’s from a century ago: ‘Credit belongs to the man’ — or woman! — ‘who is actually in the arena . . . and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.’

These two did dare greatly, and deserve more than mere credit. A gold medal to them both for sheer tenacity.

Westminster wars

• Not the best time for Chancellor Rishi Sunak to approve pay rises of up to £20,000 for Treasury civil servants who have tirelessly pushed pens throughout the pandemic. It hardly compares to pushing dying Covid patients into ICU as front- line NHS staff did — all for a measly 3 per cent rise.
• Along with making criminals wear high-viz jackets to clean up the streets, Priti Patel plans to make them wear alcohol monitoring tags that keep tabs on their drinking. Frankly, if I had to spend all day picking up the mess created by my fellow citizens, I know I’d be pouring myself a large one.
• Distressing for those of us who have considered Ken Clarke a decent man that, during the inquiry into the appalling NHS tainted blood scandal of the 1970s and 1980s — while Clarke was health minister — he denied any knowledge of it and shamefully gave no apology to the families of the dead.

Tokyo 2020 has brought introspection as well as joy. Every winner reveals that all they dreamed of was winning an Olympic gold. Crikey, that’s where I went wrong. 

All I dreamed of was marrying a rich man, having a big house and five kids and living a life of leisure. 

And look how that turned out: divorced, a cottage, no kids and still (happily) working at 63.