What an utter rotter. Edward Erin comes across all well-heeled respectability, but underneath he is a twisted, selfish, sociapathic nutsac. It didn’t say much for his ‘relationship’ with Bella Prowse that she became ‘suspicious’ of him when she noticed the top of her cup of coffee was ‘loose’. Come again? If I notice the top of my coffee is loose I don’t suspect my wife of poisoning me. Anyway, the evil Dr. Erin doped his squeeze to get rid of her unborn child. Take him away!

Oh, the wicked, wicked Victor von Doom. Created by Stand Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel comics, Doom first caught the attention of the Fantastic Four way back in 1962. “A soul-stirring, super-sensational new super villain,” they called him. Indeed. Injured in an explosion, Doom recuperates with a clan of monks in Tibet, forging himself a suit of armour and a mask only he can remove. Then, naturally, he returns to unleash seven shades of mayhem on the world.

“The details of my life are quite inconsequential . . . my father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets...” Don’t be fooled by Evil’s simple-mindedness. All true evil is simple-minded.

He might think changing his name to Neil Fox has fooled us, but no, Dr Fox, your cunning ruse has not worked. What evil has Fox thrust on the world? Crimes against music, that’s what. Assaults on the ears. From his early days on Wyvern Radio in the early 80s, and his turgid show Mellow Yellow, with Fox it has all been about the middle-of-the-road. And we can think of no Dr we would rather not be stuck in the middle with.

Docs, DM's, Airwear, call them what you will, the magical boot with bouncing soles is an unwelcome addition to our list of evil Doctors, but be that as it may. The good Dr Marten, you see, is tainted by association. Plagued by years of being linked with skinheads and suedeheads, the poor old boots were even, for a time, labelled ‘bovver boots'. Everyone knows a good, stout, leather-soled brogue does far more damage, but that’s media hype for you.

Josef Mengele, an SS officer, and ‘physician’ at Aushwitz-Birkenau was born in Germany in 1911, and died in Brazil in 1979. Go figure. He got a good 68 years in despite being the Angel of Death, responsible for thousands of deaths, and despite using human beings for his insane experiments, which included injecting chemicals into children’s eyes and amputating healthy limbs. Mengele died a wealthy man in south America, helped by other Nazis who never saw justice.

“It’s not a cola,” went the advertising jingle back in the mid-70s. “It’s something much, much more. It’s not a root beer, there are root beers by the score. It’s Dr Pepper, the joy of every boy and girl, it’s the most original soft drink ever in the whole wide world.” Is it? Is it really? It is, we admit, original. But original does not always mean righteous. What does the taste bring to our minds? Apple pips and dentist’s chairs.

One’s perception of evil can be coloured by personal experience, trivial though that event might seem to the outsider. So it is with the wooden-soled sandal introduced to the world by Dr Scholl in 1968. Years ago, I was in hospital with a burst appendix. I was in agony, and this hideous nurse would clump in, usually just as I had fallen asleep, and wake me up to insert a suppository up my arse. Even now the sound of wooden shoes approaching feels me with dread.

His mates called him Fred, and he was, we believe, the most prolific serial killer in British history with 218 confirmed kills to his name, although to be fair he was only convicted of 15. Most of Harold's victims were old women, and his main method of murder was to administer a lethal injection. He had easy access in his role as trustworthy doctor. Shipman got a life sentence, but he hanged himself in Wakefield Prison in 2006, prompting the famous Sun headline ‘Ship, Ship, Hooray!’

Yuri Zhivago, poet doctor, torn between two women. True, Zhivago’s idealism and mysticism stand out in stark contrast to the bloodlust of the wars and revolutions that unfold around him. But Zhivago’s evil is revealed in his inability to do anything. He plans lots of things: writing projects, life with various women, but ends up floating in a disturbed haze, eventually ending up with yet another woman and having a couple of sprogs before his sort of drifts to death.