There is no doubt that Jeremy Clarkson is a polarising figure in television. For every person who loves his outspoken antics on Top Gear there is another who switches the channel whenever he appears. Although thoroughly rubbishing the use of Sat Nav’s, it appears Clarkson has made a handbrake turn and lent his voice to the TomTom. It was not long ago that Clarkson said, “I still haven’t found a sat nav that knows the M40 exists. All of them insist that London and Oxford are joined by the M4…And why in God’s name do the controls have to be so complicated? I don’t need sites of special interest. What I do need is a huge off button, six inches across and painted DayGlo yellow.”
The idea of a omnipresent Clarkson giving stern directions as you drive may be will some people’s idea of hell incarnate. For loyal followers, however, Clarkson could be the perfect antidote to the standard voice used on their Sat Nav’s. “It is mostly about the tone of voice I use,’ said Clarkson in the Sunday Times. “There’s a tone of voice I use when ordering people to do things, so, “I said left, left, I said left”, you know, that kind of thing. It’s not a gentle sat nav voice, put it like that.’
He went on to say, “You can put it in Stig mode, apparently, which is when nothing happens. It doesn’t speak to you at all. So you can either have Stig or me and personally I would use The Stig most.”