Let me put this bluntly. There’s no way to sugar coat it, I’m a geek. A card carrying, statistic spouting, pedant spluttering member of the cultural elite. In fact I’m not just one kind of geek, I’m legion. I’m a computer geek and a theatre geek and a movie buff geek and a comics geek but more than anything else, oh so very much more, I’m a Doctor Who geek.

Yes, from 1989 onwards I’ve been in the thrall of the timelord and I can’t think of a programme that’s had a more positive effect on my life. While other young boys had heroes who kicked balls into far off nets or slaughtered hundreds of enemy soldiers with a belt-fed machine gun, my hero defeated evil with little more than a bag of jelly babies and an off the wall sense of humour. No behind the sofa for me, I had my face pressed up against the screen.

This may sound silly but I can actually remember making the decision to be more like the Doctor, to clown around and let people underestimate me, to attack any new situation with a mixture of childish enthusiasm and deep thought. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to say that the man I am today owes a lot to the values instilled in me then. I still abhor violence, I still love traveling and meeting people, I even sometimes still walk with my hands clasped behind my back (although admittedly this did look very odd when I was 9 years old, I kept overbalancing and falling on my head).

I mention this because myself and a couple of equally eccentric pals will shortly be unleashing a new Dr Who podcast on the world, hosted from this very website. We’ve called it ‘The Ood Cast‘ – see what we did there? The first series of six episodes will consist of an introductory show followed by a programme on each of the five 2009 specials, up to and including the end of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor.

So … exciting for everyone who likes either a) Dr Who, b) my podcasts or c) both.

Extremely dull for everyone else. But then I guess we can’t all like the same things …

‘I can’t stand burnt toast. I loathe bus stations – terrible places, full of lost luggage and lost souls. And then there’s unrequited love, and tyranny, and cruelty. We all have a world of our own terrors to face.’ – The Doctor

PS – Check out the Ood Cast Blog while you’re waiting for the audio adventures to begin.