I don’t think I should ever go on holiday.

Last year, I left the country for three weeks and came back to discover we had left Europe, the PM had resigned and America was on the verge of electing Trump as president.

This year, after two blissful weeks of sunshine and seaside, I return to chaos on a similarly epic scale.

What on earth? Or rather, what NOT on earth?

Can we really be in some kind of galactic meltdown over the revelation that a woman is going to be the 13th Doctor?

Has everyone forgotten this is a television show for children?

About a time-travelling space explorer with two hearts who solves crimes and rescues people all over the universe, thanks to his/her trusty companions and bigger-inside-than-it-looks police phone box?

I do think some of the outrage expressed on social media and online is really just about some people loving the sound of their own voices, of course.

Facebook and the like has provided a very handy platform for people who just like getting upset about stuff.

But still, it seems that some genuine fans of the long-running time travel series are actually upset about the character’s regeneration into a woman.

It’s laughable, honestly. And predictably, Jodie Whittaker, the very fine actor to take on the role, has taken terrible abuse.

There have been ludicrous suggestions, too, that male heroes are being destroyed for generations of boys, because of political correctness.

Oh, boo hoo. I have some news for those sobbing into their Tardis-patterned hankies.

Firstly, girls watch Doctor Who too, and it might be quite nice for them to see a major female sci-fi/fantasy character that isn’t a cute companion or helpless victim (see also: Hermione Granger, Rey from Star Wars).

Secondly, boys can have female heroes too, you nitwits.

You could all really learn a lot from the image of a woman saving the world.

I watched Doctor Who as a child, mostly from behind a cushion, then grew out of it, then got scared by it again through my own two sons.

And children, the target audience, don’t seem to have any issue at all with the Doctor regenerating as a female.

A quick poll of my own and their friends suggests they could care less AND they are still really looking forward to the next series.

And that’s really the point, isn’t it? The Doctor can be a man, woman or even a dalek, as long as the show remains fun to watch.

(Even it is from behind a cushion.)