Inspector Spacetime

The rush into the Inspector Spacetime meme got me thinking about another figure fitting the Doctor's schema;
(from the Inspector Spacetime list)
* Iconic costume
* Travelling with someone else
* Very British
* Making everyday objects scary
* A solve everything device (optic penknife, sonic crowbar etc)
* Lead character one step ahead
* Viewing the unusual through the familiar (the eyes of the associates)
* Temporal causality
Read more: http://inspectorspacetime.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=51#ixzz1ZmaMoFel

and adding in the other standards
*Arrives and leaves unexpectedly, leaving companions sad
* Knows absolutely everybody across time and space and fantasy
* Powers secondary to character, in the sense of moral standing
* Wavers over the line between loveable and scary
* Has to be forcibly restrained from omnipotence/godhood

and it all fits Mary Poppins pretty well.

I did like that Gaiman story where Mary Poppins took the children to heaven to meet God... who was of course rather scared of Mary.

Age Bin - Nanny State

Is it really wise of the tobacco pushers to launch an advertising campaign against the nanny state while Mary Poppins is still pulling full houses in Sydney and the last Nanny McPhee movie is just behind us? Are they really suggesting that these beloved paragons are less credible than Big Tobacco? The advertisers deserve a rap over the knuckles from a parrot-headed umbrella.