"This is the story of how I died - but not really!"

Ahead of the nation's largest simultaneous ejaculation, when Billie Piper returns to Dr Who tonight, the TV Cream Matrix Databank has been busy calculating where Rose's long-inevitable ingress ranks in terms of all-time TV and radio re-appearances. And the results are in!

1) Harold Bishop returns to Neighbours.
2) Angela Rippon joins the ITN News Channel to update viewers on the war in Iraq, but only during working hours because there's no news after 6.00pm.
3) Michael Grade goes back to save the BBC after Greg Dyke was chased out of Broadcasting House by Lord Hutton and Geoff Hoon.
4) The return of Sherlock Holmes in Granada TV's The Return Of Sherlock Holmes.
5) Alan Freeman returns to present Pick Of The Pops on Radio 1.
6) Alan Freeman returns to present Pick Of The Pops on Radio 2.
7) The swingometer returns to the BBC's general election coverage.
8) Bob Monkhouse returns to Celebrity Squares ("Hello celebrities!")
9) Mark Kermode returns to Mark Radcliffe's graveyard shift on Radio 1 after two weeks' absence due to injuring his back in a minor road accident.
10) The chimes of Big Ben return to the Six O'clock News on Radio 4 after having their once-in-20-years polish.

Oh dear! It seems there's no room for a warm hand on Rose's entrance* in the top 10 all-time TV returns. And sadly the TV Cream Dr Who Matrix Databank cannot calculate any list-based trivia beyond 258 places (or the number of times Russell T Davies has dropped an incongruous popular culture reference into one his scripts), so it's not clear whether Billie Piper appears in the chart at all. Ah well. Happy wanking.

*A premature taster for all the fanboys counting down until this evening.