Doctor Who

[FrancoLoco]

...Jack the Ripper was eaten by a Silurian in 1888.

Thank God that's settled.

Okay, what does everybody wanna do now?

[Robert]

Well it's my theory that the string vest incarnation was Rab C Nesbitt, but that later he was literally pushed to the rear.

[Chris]

But the sea devils....what can one say? Talk about fashion victims!

They started out wearing prehistoric string vests, didn't they?

And in one of the Peter Davison serials they were accompanied by something that looked suspiciously like a reptilian pantomime horse:

[Robert]

I still think the best monsters were the daleks. You never quite knew what was inside the pepperpot, and you never knew when that ray gun would go off. It's true that every time they killed a couple of people, the dead bodies blocked the way and the daleks had to turn round and go back round by the long route - but you can't have everything.

[TomTomKent]

A third eye? Bit of a downer if you're a Silurian optician.

I remember Pertwee holding out his hand and saying "Hallo. Are you a Silurian?" But the sea devils....what can one say? Talk about fashion victims!

Poor chaps were green around the gills that day.

[Robert]

I'm afraid I have been out of the Dr Who loop for some time. Have the Ice Warriors got rid of their sinus trouble yet?

[Sally]

Infirmary records?

Cause of Ailment - Indigetion..

[Chris]

Ah, another Doctor Who reference to the Ripper. For those of you who want to geek up, the Ripper was also inferred to be Wen Chi Yan (in the Talons of Wen Chi Yan). ...

I suppose that might explain why the Silurian found him a bit stringy:

[Robert]

A third eye? Bit of a downer if you're a Silurian optician.

I remember Pertwee holding out his hand and saying "Hallo. Are you a Silurian?" But the sea devils....what can one say? Talk about fashion victims!

[TomTomKent]

Ah, another Doctor Who reference to the Ripper. For those of you who want to geek up, the Ripper was also inferred to be Wen Chi Yan (in the Talons of Wen Chi Yan) as well as an insectoid aline (Dr Who New Adventures novels by Virgin Books) or the Valyard (BBC Novel Range) and various aliens in the Dr Who Comics (Panini).

[Chris]

They are here. Mayday, mayday...

Hmm. I'm not sure you're treating this subject with the seriousness it deserves.

For Ripperologists unfamiliar with the Silurians, I found this presentation about their history on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNau-EAH3Ro&feature=related

Perhaps the Whitechapel Society might like to book him for a future meeting?

[Robert]

They are here. Mayday, mayday...

http://www.barney.com/uk/index.asp

[Robert]

I think so. I think they also had trouble with the 1911 census, number of children still alive. This would have involved them in a great deal of detection work, tracing offspring over several million years. The disability section of the 1911 isn't currently viewable, but in 100 years time I would expect to see things like "cold-blooded so take time to warm up" and "allergic to meteorites."

[Chris]

Am I right in thinking that in the 1841 census the age was rounded down to the nearest 50 million years for Silurians?

[Robert]

Yes, well it depends whether these were middle-class Silurians or working-class Silurians. If the latter, place of birth might vary a bit from census to census, and if you add in faulty memory due to the huge time period involved, then you're likely to get place of birth as anything from Atlantis to the Goodwin Sands.