by Quentin Cockburn

Look here, I’m sure readers of our blog who understand that for every new experimental vehicle, for every new prototype, there is refinement upon refinement until the preferred is put into mass production.  So has it been with the Dalek.  We got off to a great start, base, central core and wheels fitted in a matter of days, and then we got to the tricky bits.  This is the part in the process when people think of Myki, (Melbourne’s hateful ‘designed to punish the traveling public’ ticketing system) or the F35.  (Punishment for friends and foes alike.)  When it gets technical, no matter how small, the staff will try to find an elegant solution.  The bigger the organisation, the less elegant the solution.  It’s the thinking persons’ ‘Peter Principle’.  Haussman designed Paris, Vicurban designed Docklands: “You figure?”  Often it is best to walk away, and return refreshed.

I’m sure that’s what Mitchell did when he was inspired to design the Spitfire.  Still, I think, the most elegant piece of practical sculpture yet devised.

That’s what we did precisely at the tricky point.  No development for a month.  We lacked confidence and courage.  That’s vital for construction.  But without the pause where would we be you may ask?  Wrong-footed, and like the F35, exhausting ourselves on refinement at great cost.  We kept to budget, by doing nothing we kept the bottom line where it’s meant to be.  At the bottom.

Next.  We had to perform tests.  And see how the semi completed prototype performed under normal operating conditions in the field.  This is trickier than we thought.  The plastic, (polystyrene semi spheres) fell off.  The joints, that had been taped over, (due to the impact of unexpected moisture) buckled, and the first of the O rings designed to house the swiveling head-piece buckled under the strain of constant use.

Back to the drawing board we went, and for primary sources Jasper, (Bendigo Dalek Construction Operative 1#) consulted his extensive repertoire of sixties Doctor Who classics.  Those not trashed by that ‘eeedeot’* who ran the BBC in the seventies.

To our great pleasure we discovered that the sixties Daleks, considered by connoisseurs as the “Sean Connery” of Daleks, were visible for screws, scuff marks, and very Un-Dalek like cracks and chips.  We were destined for success if our ‘hand-made’ objects looked so good in looking so used.

We were now able to assure ourselves, confidence renewed that we are ‘on track’.  If only other research and development corps existed at GMH, or Myki, the world of manufacturing in Australia would be a happier place.

We have now gone through the delicate process of constructing the middle section, and are preparing the gauze for the inner sleeve.  After installing the voice modulator and sophisticated electronics hardware, (a torch, a whistle, and a caulking gun reconfigured to work like a laser) the Dalek will be ready.

Our prototype is perhaps more versatile than the standard.  A hybrid of sorts as we can work it in one piece as standard Dalek, or remove the top and configure it as Davros Mk1.  Not much cause for a reconfigured Davros you might say?  I say ‘Pshaw’!  Davros** was allegedly destroyed by the Daleks, but was able to return as their master.  There is a lesson in this.  Progressive society had allegedly destroyed the DLP, only for it to return as Tony Abbott.

A new Messiah?

We need to summon the Time Lord Now!

* We like to think of him as culturally arrogant dear leader, “Fuckface” Mk 1.  Considered above bombing of Dresden and burning of the Alexandria Library in ancient times the worst cultural atrocity of all time.  The head of Drama at the BBC, Sydney Newman ordered the junking as “cost cutting measures” of full episodes of ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Z Cars’, ‘Steptoe and Son’ and ‘Not only but Also’.

**  Davros. Creator of the Daleks.  Any resemblance between Davros and  Christopher Pyne is purely coincidental.