OK, so who watched the first episode of the new Dr Who on Saturday? I taped it and watched it last night when we’d got back from Northampton.

I think it’s excellent. Christopher Eccleston is definitely the Doctor - in a new key, I’ll grant you, but definitely the Doctor. I’m glad to see that Billie Piper has a more feisty part to play as Rose Tyler than some of the Doctor’s previous companions.

I love the new interior of the TARDIS and I like the self-referential and ironic humour - I don’t think you could do it in any other way now.

I was afraid that Dr Who would be ruined, but I think the BBC’s done OK.

Had a great day with Alex, Charlie, Ethan & Emily in Northampton yesterday (Sunday 27 March). The weather was very disappointing for the Easter weekend - cold and overcast all day - but after lunch at Sixfields Pizza Hut, we went to Abington Park so that the kids could ride their bikes, feed the ducks and go on the climbing frames and swings.

Poor little Emily got really cold while we were doing the swings etc and began to shiver, but Ethan was having a great time of it.

Picked up Tom as we left and brought him back to London to stay while he does his course on ProTools. Vicky is not staying with us this time.

I have never been to a Zoroastrian festival before, but on Saturday evening (26 March) Erica and I drove out to the new Zoroastrian Centre at Rayners Lane to take part in the celebration of the Birthday of the Prophet Zoroaster.

The Centre is a beautifully refurbished Art Deco cinema, very close to Rayners Land Underground station. The outside is still under wraps, but the refurbishment and reconstruction work inside is almost complete. And what a wonderful job they’ve done. The Iranian architect (himself a Zoroastrian) has specified the very highest quality materials and has created a wonderful space for the community to gather, to pray and to observe its festivals and rituals.

A level floor has been created in what were the stalls, the stage has been slightly extended, the art deco ceiling has been preserved and painted, new lighting has been installed. The old projection booth has been transformed into a prayer hall, where the sacred fire is kept alight during prayer times and festivals. (It’s not a consecrated temple, so the fire is not kept alight perpetually.) The fire, tended by a priest dressed in white and wearing a mask over his nose and mouth, burns in a vast metal urn within an enclosure (which has its own chimney and extractor fan. The fire represents sacred purity and the enclosure is the purest part of the building. Only priests can enter the enclosure - and only Zoroastrians can be in the prayer hall during their prayer times.

Because English Heritage has listed the interior as well as the exterior of the building, the Zoroastrian community was forced to install cinema seats in the balcony, even though the building is never going to be used as a cinema again. They had hoped to divide the balcony (which seats around 300) into smaller meeting rooms that they could let out to help defray their costs. But, no, the mandarins of English Heritage have made this absurd decision and the Zoroastrian community has to pay the cost.

Erica and I joined in the celebration at the invitation of our good friend Dorab Mistry, the President of the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe. Another good friend, Dr Natubhai Shah from the Jain community, together with his wife, were also there.

We arrived to find a friendly and relaxed hubbub going on. Festival prayers had just finished and some 200 of the community were sitting around tables chatting. Children and youth were rushing around. Everyone we met welcomed us most warmly. At no point were we made to feel like intruders our outsiders and no one tried to press any ‘message’ on us. To me it seemed like an object lesson for faith (and other) communities on how to make our guests feel like they’re part of the gathering.

Dorab invited Dr Shah and myself to say a few words from the stage - although he had great difficulty in persuading the community to quiet down and listen. Everyone was having such fun talking to each other, they were not desperate to listen to speeches. Natubhai and I both kept our speeches very short. I spoke about the importance of interfaith work and about the Faith Based Regeneration Network; I closed with a quote from the Writings of Baha’u'llah about humanity’s being the leaves of one tree and commanding us to consort with each other in a spirit of friendliness and fellowship.

The food was wonderful. The Zoroastrian community had taken great care to provide Dr & Mrs Shah with Jain food, prepared by a Jain cook - another example of their tremendous thoughtfulness and loving kindness. We had the opportunity to sample some of this food as well as the Zoroastrian food prepared for the auspicious day that is the Birthday of Zoroaster.