Hands off the Doctor Who knitting circle

Where is the Time Lord when you need him? A faceless behemoth is bent on crushing an innocent earthling and Doctor Who is nowhere to be found, reports Lucy Mangan. To add insult to injury the earthling is a dedicated Whovian. So dedicated, in fact, that Mazzmatazz (as the 26-year-old blogger is known) has for some time been posting knitting patterns on the internet to show others how to recreate, through the medium of cottonwool and yarn, cuddly versions of the villainous Ood and Adipose aliens from the current BBC series. The BBC, however, has taken exception to this since someone tried to sell one of her patterns on eBay. This, the broadcaster evidently felt, represented a clear and present danger to the £800m a year its commercial arm makes through its intellectual property and merchandising rights every year and it has unleashed its lawyers on her.

The readiness of giant corporations to confuse an excess of enthusiastic fandom with an insidious commercial threat is not heartening. The existence - suddenly revealed to the wider public - of a Whovian knitting community, however, is. The briefest of searches reveals that there are people out there engaged in Tom Baker scarf knitalongs, swapping encouragement over those tricky colour-changing points at a woolly Dalek's "shoulders", sharing patterns for K-9 tissue holders, knitted Tardises (Tardii?), and even a truly resplendent version in cream and red wool of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor.

The question of why Doctor Who, traditionally the seizer of techno-geek imaginations, should have been so readily embraced by the crafty set probably has as many answers as there are Tardis-knitters. For some it will simply have to do with the pleasure of recreating easily recognisable iconic items. For others, the innate humour of juxtaposing intergalactic technology and/or cosmic villainry with such homespun domestic skills. And for others, as one blogger points out, it will have something to do with the fact that the average Whovian and the average knitter tend to have a lot of time hanging heavy on their hands. Even heavier soon, of course, if the BBC has its way.