Et in Akkadia ego

"When you look at the cultural role of Dr Who over the last five thousand years," sez I in the Explaining Voice, "he has always been a kind of Trickster archetype -- unconcerned with social strictures, even unstable in his physical boundaries. In the Sumerian city-states when tales of the Doctor and the Tardis first appear (as documented in cylinder seals from Uruk), the reason why his adventures appealed so much to the average peasant was the contrast between his taboo-breaking insouciance and the rigid, regimented temple-dominated society."

Tardis flanked by Khybermen

"You're making that up," Another Kiwi vouchsafed.

"It is Humour in Cuneiform," I said.