Is There A Doctor In The House?

Yes!
Actually last night there were 2, although each one claimed to be The Doctor, and both were technically correct.  Yes, it came to be that time of the year when this drama-mentary broadcasts a topical episode - isn't it funny how often London gets invaded at Christmas? - and this one took advantage of the Christmas truce of 1914, the First Doctor's regeneration and Daleks.  Art?

Art Deco Dalek

     Your humble scribe felt it could have been edited down a bit, with the last iteration of The Doctor frankly hamming it up in his last scenes - at length.  I did like the First Doctor's horrified reaction on seeing the TARDIS in it's current version: "Have I been burgled?"
     Also, that revelation about the Captain - I did not see that one coming!
     Now for the criticism.  I am afraid this is inevitable, because I am a hair-splitting pedant of the worst/best/only kind,* especially when it comes to getting military things correct.  Okay, Ypres Salient December 1914 - it looked a bit light on snow, and rather too shell-blasted, because it does take time for Hom. Sap. to reduce a battlefield to an arid expanse of bare earth.
     Secondly, there was a Lewis gun on display in the British lines.  Art?

One of these

     I know it is indelibly associated with the First Unpleasantness, yet it didn't come into service with the British army until late 1915.  Tut tut set dressers!
     There was also a brief glimpse of what appeared to be a Russian 1910 Maxim in the German lines, absent the metal shield, attempting to stand in for a German MG08.  Pah!  Who are they trying to fool?  Art!

Identifiable thanks to the filling-cap taken from a tractor design, apparently

     I realise this has nothing to do with dramatic content or acting, but I thought you'd like to know.
     Okay, time to put the motley in the torpedo tube and fire it!**

Beware Of The SPIRALISER!!
I know, I know, using 2 exclamation marks is a bit excessive; I wanted to make a dramatic point.  Casting back to "Doctor Who" again, a "Spiraliser" sounds like one of the dodgier 
Weapons of Mass Destruction that The Master would come up with - "It will unravel your DNA until it resembles a set of anti-bird spikes!" - no evil cackle, The Master didn't go in for them (although you can imagine a moustache-tweak if you wish)

A Spiraliser!
Or - is it an industrial stapler?

     Here an aside.  Would scrambling your DNA be immediately fatal?  Or only effective in your twilight years?  Or merely prevent you from having offspring?  I feel more research on this is needed.

Ace claims this is a deadly Dalek weapon.  I'm not so sure.  Should we Tazer him?

     Anyway, it transpires that a Spiraliser is in no way linked to the Beeb's Visual Effects Department.  It is, in fact, a device for processing vegetables.
     Damn you, reality, damn you.
     Wonder Wifey's gleeful approbation of the one left by Santa deserved a picture, so here it is:

     Contorted carrots.  The thing is, the Spiraliser creates very long strips of vegetable spaghetti, and who do we know who loves crunchy vegetables?
     No!  Not the Fifth Doctor with his ever-present stick of celery - Edna, that's whom.  Art?

Dance, Edna, dance!  Dance for your dinner.

A Subtle Inversion Of The Norm
Ah me yes, only last week I had to endure two old dears on the 409 bus blathering on about young people and how they always had their noses pressed up against their mobile phone, and how they were always texting (Cont. Page 94) -
     Well, not last night.  Art?

     That's Tom on the left, and I don't think Degsy, on the right, would deny that Tom is considerably younger than he is.  But wait!  What is this?  For Degsy, the elder of the two, is engrossed in something on his Devil-Box, and yet Tom is equally engrossed, in a collection of processed wood laminates collected in bound form.***
     Take that, stereotyping old ladies!

Finally -
Because it's an armoured vehicle, if not a tank, allow me to introduce the 39M Csaba armoured car, as used by the Honved (the Royal Hungarian Arrmy) in the Second Unpleasantness.  Art?

As designed by Miklos Straussler

     The odd thing is that it was designed by the above-named Hungarian, who lived in Perfidious Albion at the time, and said design was submitted for production before the Second Unpleasantness broke out, at which point he would have been regarded as the enemy.



*  Delete where applicable.  However, be sure to get it right.
**  Don't worry, the sub is in shallow waters.
***  A "Book"