Dalek Christmas Song

Christmas season already.
More Daleks.

I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With a Dalek by The Go Go's.

The Go-Go's were a semi-professional group from Newcastle and released I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With a Dalek in 1964 at the height of the original Dalek-mania (not unlike Beatle-mania but without the haircuts). The vocals were by lead singer Sue Smith with one of the male members of the group providing a dodgy, nasal Dalek voice.
 

Lyrics:

I bring you gree-tings from all Da-leks (Dalek voice)
I'm gonna spend my Christmas with a Dalek,
And hug him under the mistletoe
And if he's very nice
I'll feed him sugar spice
And hang Christmas stocking from his big lead toe
And when we both get up on Christmas morning
I'll kiss him on his chromium-plated head
And take him in to say hi to Mum
And frighten daddy out of his bed!

Merry Christmas
Mer-ry Christ-mas (Dalek voice)
Happy Christmas
Hap-py Christ-mas (Dalek voice)
Merry Christmas
Mer-ry Christ-mas (Dalek voice)
To you

I wish to be your friend (Dalek voice)
Please may I have some more plum pud-ding and cus-tard? (Dalek voice)
I'm gonna spend my Christmas with a Dalek,
And if I make him happy he will stay
He'll go (whoop) and (whirr) and twiddle his eye
And then my little Dalek will say

Merry Christmas
Christ-mas Tree (Dalek voice)
Happy Christmas
Mist-le-toe (Dalek voice)
Merry Christmas
Mer-ry Christ-mas (Dalek voice)
To you

Merry Christmas
I love you (Dalek voice)
Happy Christmas
You love me (Dalek voice)
Merry Christmas
Mer-ry Christ-mas (Dalek voice)
To you

Merry Christmas
More-plum-pudding (Dalek voice)
Happy Christmas
More-cus-tard... (Dalek voice)
(fade out)

Building Daleks

We're building daleks!

 

Researcher Kevin Warwick, a former cyborg, from the University of Reading, has been working on creating organic neural networks that can control machines.  He and his team have taken cultured brain cells from rats and used them as the guidance control circuit for simple wheeled robots.
 

 

Electrical impulses from the robot (or travel machine) part of the rat-dalek enter the cluster of neurons, and responses from the brain cells are turned into commands for the device.  The intelligence of these daleks are very basic, the brain cluster control primarily helps the robot to avoid walls.  Where it gets really interesting is that the cells can form new connections and this obstacle avoidance often shows clear improvement over time, demonstrating true learning ability on the part of the dalek.


 

 

Current cultures of neurons have about 100,000 cells, but only a small fraction are actually involved in controlling the robot circuits at any given time. Research teams continually find new ways to increase the size and response of these cultures, as well as how long they can survive. Eventually, we’ll have a dalek brain that will be able to accomplish much, much more.  Perhaps we are just a shrill voice synthesis and a death ray away from a true tantrum throwing salt and pepper shaker seeing our extermination.

 

 

 

"Primitive but undeniably a dalek" - Tom Baker as Dr Who, Genesis of the Daleks.