Born in Cardiff, the city where the Doctor Who team are currently based, he would have been 80 years old this week - on Sunday, 8 August, to be precise. Throughout the 60s and 70s he was one of the UK's most prolific and successful TV writers - despite beginning his career as a stand-up comedian! He penned memorable scripts for cult dramas including The Saint and The Avengers and created smash series Survivors and Blake's Seven.

He was, of course, Terry Nation - best known as the inventor of the Daleks. Aside from creating the Doctor's oldest and most iconic enemies, Terry wrote many great adventures for three of the first four Doctors, including two tales which didn't feature the Daleks, The Keys of Marinus and The Android Invasion. His contributions to the show spanned over 15 years (1963 - 79) although his legacy lives on with every battle the Doctor faces with the Daleks.

In 1979 Terry Nation began working in Hollywood, settling in California where he worked for Columbia, 20th Century Fox and MGM. He died in Los Angeles, 9 March 1997.

How terrible. How brutally tragic. Terry Nation was Welsh.

Following a panel on the making of the episodic adventure games, with Sumo Digital’s creative director Sean Milliard and members of the BBC, we caught Cecil for a brief word to talk about working practices and what he’s learnt from this pioneering collaboration with the BBC.

• "It’s very much Tom’s Doctor and no one else’s. Only Tom’s Doctor talks in this particular way… He’s the wittiest, the cleverest and the strangest – and that’s what I write for him."
• "I like to tap into the Gothic spirit of the 70s Who. It’s perhaps even more macabre and surreal, the way we do it… For me, Doctor Who was all about dark autumn and winter nights and strange fireside tales… and that’s what we do."
• "Lots and lots of ideas – for all sorts of things. The ideas – mercifully – show no sign of slowing up yet!"
• "I’d bring in some more non-TV writers. I’d set more stories in outer space. I’d bring back the Zygons…"

"We'd already cast Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and the very first person we saw for Dr Watson was Matt, who came in and gave a very good audition. But he didn't have a chance in hell of getting it because he was clearly more of a Sherlock Holmes than a Dr Watson. There was also something a bit barmy about him - and you don't actually want that for Dr Watson. You want somebody a bit straighter. But he gave a very good account of himself and you could feel the effort in him clamping down on his barminess in order to do the audition."

Welcome to the first episode of the new Cloister Room podcast, a podcast about Doctor Who and other things. This week, the "Doctor Who" is series Five, and the "Other Things" are Torchwood, Caprica, Inception, Sherlock, and Lost! And more! Well, not MUCH more, but a LITTLE more.

I only learned how to knit this past Christmas and am still what would be considered a novice, I suppose . . . However, this simple stripey scarf has to be one of the easiest scarf projects I’ve ever tackled. Knit in the very easy “garter stitch” (which is just a plain knit stitch rowed over and over again) it variates seven different colors. You can change the length according to who you’re making the scarf for – this project plan, however, assumes you’ll be making a 66-inch long, 60-stitch wide scarf (that’s about five foot, six inches long and about 11 inches wide).

• Yarn — all one ounce (25 gram) balls of worsted weight yarn, preferably cotton or wool — specifically 3 purple, 6 camel, 3 bronze, 3 mustard, 4 rust, 3 grey, 4 greenish-brown.
• US #9 knitting needles, enough length to hold 60 stitches
• Scissors and crochet hook

1. "Vale"
   

1. "A Victorian Christmas"
2. "Not the Doctor"
3. "A Bit of a Drag"
4. "In the Sea of Memory"
5. "Hidden in the Closet"
6. "The Wonder of Balloons"
7. "A Forceful Intelligence"
8. "The Greats of Past Time"
9. "The March of the Cybermen"
10. "Goodbyes"
    

1. "A Disturbance in the Night"
2. "The Cat Burglar"
3. "Alone in the Desert"
4. "A Special Sort of Bus"
5. "Stirring in the Sands"
6. "Lithuania"

1. "Letter to Earth"
2. "By Water Borne . . ."
3. "The Fate of Little Adelaide"
4. "Altering Lives"
   

1. "We Shall Fare Well"
2. "A Frosty Ood"
3. "A Dream of Catastrophe"
4. "All in the Balance"
5. "A Ruined Gaol"
6. "Wilf's Wiggle"
7. "Minnie Hooper"
8. "The End Draws near"
9. "Gallifrey"
10. "Final Days"
11. "The Council of the Time Lords"
12. "The Master Suite"
13. "The Ruined Childhood"
14. "A Chaotic Escape"
15. "The World Waits"
16. "A Longing to Leave"
17. "A Lot of Life Behind Us"
    
18. "Dealing with the Menace"
19. "Speeding to Earth"
20. "The Time Lords' Last Stand"
21. "The Clouds Pass"
22. "Four Knocks"
23. "Song for Ten (Reprise)"
24. "Vale Decem"
25. "Vale"
26. "The New Doctor"
    

We gave you a Weeping Angel and a Doctor one recently, but we want to know what masks you want the most. Do you fancy wandering around looking like a Cyberman? Have you ever tried playing football as a Smiler or Silurian, or riding the bus as a Judoon? Well now is your chance, so send in your requests now!

Email us at the usual address and put MASKS in the subject line. If you've got funny pics of you in your masks, attach those, too!

Source 1 and 2.

Edit - We have some masks here and here.