The Quickness of the Hand

I first came across astral travel, the out of body experience, in The Ka of Gifford Hillary, one of those occult novels by Denis Wheatley. He seems to have gone way out of fashion now. Maybe his works would seem a bit lurid or tawdry these days, but in the late sixties when I couldn't get enough of them, they felt like an adults-only branch of the wild monstrous fantasy of which Doctor Who was the main stream family branch. But those were the days when Eastbourne College boys had to get written leave to go into town (maybe they still do), and I used to sneak out to the cinema with a friend to see The Devil Rides Out or Dracula Has Risen From The Grave, probably at the risk of detention if we'd been caught.

In a fit of venomous pique, the First Doctor takes sneaky revenge on Glospin and the rest of his Family. A bit like children reporting their parents for drug abuse or sueing them for maltreatment. I didn't anticipate this bit in the initial storyline. But when I got to the chapter in the text, the Doctor decided to go in a different direction. I love it when the characters take charge and override my projected storyline. In one fell swoop, the Doctor added a whole extra dimension as to how and why the House had been struck from the Gallifreyan records. And that dimension is called Spite.

The owl statue outside the Chapterhouse echoes Paul Cornell's fondness for the birds. This particular Prydonian owl draws parallels with the carved face on a wall of the Doge's Palace in Venice. Into its mouth, citizens could slip anonymous accusations about their neighbours. The accused would then be tried by the city's fearsome inquisitors, the Council of Ten. So let's face it, Glospin may be The Villain, but the Doctor is just as capable of giving as good as he gets.