Steven Moffat has attempted to clear up comments that hit the headlines the other week when it was reported that he said that all the Doctors were ugly.

Speaking in his latest DWM column he says: “Ah, all the things I’ve never said. I could write a book, full of words I never wrote. I’m used to a foot in my mouth, but on the whole I’d prefer it was my own.

“The other morning I woke up to several online newspaper editions announcing I’d called all the Doctors ugly. That one set me blinking. As you know, I am an icon of male beauty (dear Man In New York, we Brits call that a joke), but that seemed a bit off.

“A quick investigation – it turned out me declaring that the Doctors were all “not conventionally attractive” (my own ripped physique allows me such imperious judgements) had been lightly processed into the kind of clickbait that means you have to email your friends.

“Ho hum. Just another day’s blundering. And sometimes, in my paranoia and embarrassment, I wonder if I’m just making everybody cross all the time. I used to do that socially on an individual basis, but now every screw-up goes viral. My epic lack of tact has been weaponised!”