Fawlty directions

Cleese voices car navigation system

John Cleese, who as Basil Fawlty once gave his car a ‘damn good thrashing’ with a branch, is to be the calming voice of a new in-car navigation system.

Drivers have long been able to customise their GPS boxes with a series of exaggerated characters, such as the Cockney wideboy or German psychoanalyst, but Cleese is to sign such a deal.

Customers of electronics company TomTom will be able to pay €10 (around £7) to download his voice.

TomTom’s chief executive Harold Goddijn said: ‘As a personal fan of the Monty Python sketches this is really fantastic news, and from a TomTom perspective this emphasises the fun we are bringing to satellite navigation”.

‘This is a first for personal navigation.’

Published: 30 Jun 2005

We see you are using AdBlocker software. Chortle relies on advertisers to fund this website so it’s free for you, so we would ask that you disable it for this site. Our ads are non-intrusive and relevant. Help keep Chortle viable.