I think about this a lot, but let me think about it quickly. A long time ago now, I was at Radio Times, reading a book in a break and when I looked up from the page, everything changed. I was at Radio Times, where I had so wanted to be, but now, one page later, one paragraph later, I was at Radio Times and for all I liked it there, it was no longer where I wanted to be.

The book was The Writer’s Tale by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook — a Radio Times writer at the time, as it happens — and the paragraph was a mention of some casting decision in Doctor Who. The punch for me was that I had written a news story for RT about that casting decision but from the dates in the book, I knew that I’d done this more or less exactly one year after the choice had been made. I no longer wanted to be writing about other people’s writing, I needed to be at the point when those decisions are made.

All of which is on my mind because it is so very often on my mind, but particularly today because it’s just happened again. And again it was because of Doctor Who.

Follow. You will know that there was a very good Christmas Special this year and that it was the first story for the 15th Doctor, Ncuti Gatwa. After it aired, there was a flurry of fan activity over one character who had two lines of dialogue, but made infinitely more observant viewers than me catch their breath. This character was played by Susan Twist who was also featured in “Wild Blue Yonder”, two episodes before. She played a seemingly different character, Mrs Merridew, and was certainly in a different time.

As I say, smarter people than I spotted this and, whumph, conspiracy theories ignited. This wasn’t chance casting, this was A Clue about future stories in the show. Amusingly, for me, you can read all about it in this article — on Radio Times.

But now.

Some 225 Doctor Who and Doctor Who-related scripts have been released online and one of them is for that Christmas Special, “The Church on Ruby Road”. Which was previously, as you learn from the script, going to be called “The Bridge”. Anyway, there it is, scene 3, page 6:

A WOMAN in the CROWD – a woman we’ve seen as Mrs Merridew in Special 2, a woman we’ll see a lot more of – YELLS:

I’d like to be as observant as viewers who spotted this, but I need to be writing, creating, making.

I need to write betterer.