No matter how much we try to exterminate our childhood obsessions, they always work their way back into our lives.  For Nick Griffiths, a successful journalist, he's has come to embrace that obsession with Dr Who with a certain price rather than shame.  And it's no coincidence that the show which has shadowed him all his life, has now received a phoenix-life rebirth, becoming more phenomenally successful than its first incarnation. 

What Griffiths attempts to do in his light-hearted memoir is to recount the most memorable events in his own life with Dr Who as the defining backdrop. Whilst the Doctor may have been born on Gallifrey, our intrepid author was born in Horndean, Hampshire. Instead of visiting alien planets in a Tardis, our earth-bound author has been travelling to Calais and King's College, London.  Instead of fighting Daleks or Axons or Cybermen, he has been battling hangovers.  And whilst he may have watched Jon Pertwee regenerate into Tom Baker because of the Planet of Spiders, Griffiths' life was transformed by the Spiders From Mars frontman, David Bowie.

For anyone with loves nostalgia, Dalek I Loved You brings out your own memories of the programme and the significant moments in your life.  It's an undemanding, sometimes even feather-light, read. Neither profound nor substantial, but Griffiths maintains his childhood excitement into his middle-age and, as such, the book is best served as trigger for comparable recollections from each and every reader. After all, Doctor Who is a TV showthat was born the same day as JFK's assassination, so it has become a part of popular culture and personal history for nearly 45 years. Even the current Time Lord, David Tennant, has kept the programme close to his heart as he has grown up and now he gets to play his hero.

In a curious parallel, Griffiths now gets to write about his hero for the Radio Times. Proof that childhood dreams can come true.  Now where did I put my sonicscrewdriver?  Anyone want a jellybaby?