The Real Dr Who

"We've got science today," Small Boy announces breezily on the way to school. "Oh, that reminds me. What's the name of that particle thingie that they've discovered which means that Dr Who is real?"
"Do you mean the neutrino?" I ask. I do not disabuse him of the notion that Dr Who is not real, as I have always secretly hoped he might be myself.
"Yes," says Small Boy confidently. "So now they've discovered it, does it mean we can go back in time?"
"I hope not," says Daughter. "People would change things and that would muck up history."
I am momentarily impressed by this perceptive comment. "Yes, that's right. You can't fiddle about with the Space-Time Continuum, you know."
Daughter shoots me a withering look and says, "You are so weird. Anyway, I'm much more interested in finding out why we have hair on our heads."
"What?" I ask, silently urging the cyclist to get off and walk up the hill so that we can get to school quicker. Chris is still away. Miranda Hart is doing a sterling job, but John Holmes is not so good. And I can't see why putting a tall woman and a short man together on the radio is deemed a good idea. I have written to the BBC to express my dismay.
"Well, we have all this hair on our heads which we put into ponytails and plaits and things with scrunchies and hair slides and bands and stuff, but we don't do any of that with the hair on our bodies, do we?" Daughter persists.
"And this has what, precisely, to do with time travel?" I ask.
"S'obvious," Small Boy chips in. "If we could travel back in time, we could ask the cave men why they stopped growing hair all over the place except on their heads."
"Well, we don't only have hair on our heads--" I begin, and immediately regret it.
"URGH! DON'T!" Daughter squeals, flapping her hands in the air. "That is like TOTALLY DISGUSTING!"
"You're the one who started talking about body hair," I protest.
"Anyway, I was talking about time travel," says Small Boy determinedly steering the conversation back on track. I smile at him gratefully in the rear view mirror. "So, IS it going to be possible to travel in time now we have the new-treen-thingie?"
"Who knows?" I answer vaguely. "After all, things that we considered improbable in science fiction years ago are now part of our daily lives."
"Like hairdryers?" says Small Boy.
"Er, ye-es."
"No, you numpty," spits Daughter. "She means like mobile phones and computers and things."
"WHAT? You mean a computer was like a science fiction sorta thing when you were young?" Small Boy gasps.
"Yes, we didn't have computers when I was your age. Well, not good ones," I add.
"Aha! So you did actually have computers," Small Boy picks me up on my error. "As if you could live without computers," he mutters under his breath.
I think back to those dreary afternoons watching a tiny blip bat backwards and forwards across the screen of the ZX81 while Dad excitedly showed me how to "play tennis on the computer". I was more than happy to live without that particular computer.
"Well, you'll just have to take my word for it - we didn't have the kind of technology you have today," I say. "I didn't get a mobile phone until you were born and when I was your age, the TV had just three channels and Auntie C and I were allowed to watch only two of them."
"WHAT?" the children chorus. "What was wrong with the third one?"
I think of Mother mouthing the word "common" in a Miranda-esque manner whenever ITV was mentioned, and decide I don't want to introduce my children to the idea of putting things into a mental box marked "common".
"It - er - it didn't have Dr Who on!" I say, turning down the road to school at last.
"Oh wow - so you didn't have computers, but you DID have Dr Who?" Small Boy is gobsmacked. "So that proves he is really real then."
"Oh, shut up," says Daughter.
"No but, yes but, listen!" Small Boy is bouncing violently in the back of the car now, his whole body electric with excitement. "S'bovious, isn't it? If Dr Who was around when Mum was little but there were no computers when Mum was little, there must be time travel because Dr Who has computers and he was around when Mum was little and he uses computers all the time so he must have been using computers when Mum was little and so that proves that the new-treen-thing is right and time travel and Dr Who DO EXIST! I am so going to tell my science teacher all that in lessons today."
He flops back in his seat, arms folded decisively, a resolute and happy grin on his face.
So much for that small matter of the Theory of Relativity, I think.
Einstein, mate, your game is up. You've been out-theorised by a ten year old.