Nothing of note happened between getting up, leaving for work and returning home from work. In fact, the only highlight of my work day was getting a lift home from my father and arriving home 40 minutes earlier than normal.
During the evening meal, my wife and I watched "The Family Of Blood", which was the second part of the story that started with "Human Nature" from Doctor Who series 3. It's only recently that I recognised that the chap who plays the creepy alien-possessed Baines in it is Harry Lloyd who has also recently been seen on our screens in BBC's Robin Hood series.
With dinner, the programme over and being armed with the batteries I needed (this time) it was finally on to activating my 18" Voice Interactive Dalek for the first time.
I first tried it in remote controlled mode, which is rather basic. Two joysticks control movement of the Dalek, another to control the rotation of the dome with its eyestalk on and another to raise and lower this eyestalk. In addition, there's a button which causes it to utter one of the familiar lines from the modern run of Doctor Who (i.e. 2005 onwards). Unlike the ones in these later stories, it doesn't off er a rotating centre for shooting behind itself.
"Voice interactive" mode is where it shines. It can stand sentry and challenge (and "exterminate" i.e. make a firing noise while the gun lights up) anything that approaches it; go off on a wander; seek & locate (and "exterminate"); find & track moving objects. It also has a mode where you can tell it to move forwards, left or right (but strangely not backwards) a specific number of units and you can also set up a list of these movements to occur which can be triggered by another command.
It's very fun to mess around with and looks great too, which is ideal for the room I'll be setting up as my gaming/home cinema/hi-fi/reading room later this year!
Wisely, my cat chose to hide behind the sofa, which was kind of apt!
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