Machine Madness

We've just acquired a Tom Tom Go.

No, this isn't a new set of drums - it's a car navigation kit.

I'm a bit ambivalent about it. I mean, it makes me sort of redundant. I regard myself as a reasonably good navigator - give me a map and I'll generally be able to find myself around the place (unless it's in Germany, where we ended going to Liege from Düsseldorf via Cologne). Of course, navigating around without a map gets interesting - when we were touring central Europe we would head for the centre of the city, stop off at any likely hotel and nick a tourist map of the place. Luckily, 'Center' appears to be much the same in French, German and Dutch. It does have its down side - try heading for London City Center.

So, we now have a navigator and I'm reduced to the state of passive observer, looking at the scenery, watching the cars go by, trying to apply the passenger's footbrake when we get within one foot of the car in front travelling at 70mph. It's not that I'm a nervous passenger. It's just that when people drive with the same care and attention that I use when I'm in the driving seat I get nervous.

But I digress.

On the whole, this navigator thingy is quite good. It really proved itself when we had to go from a small village to Leamington Spa (it's a town, for all you non Brits) via the country roads at night in deep fog after a party. We were giving some friends a lift back to their place and it didn't help that he was a half pint short of oblivion. So, all we had was our trusty electronic navigator. Very useful because you couldn't see more than 4 feet in front of you but the navigator calmly showed us where the bends were, where there was a crossroads coming up and basically acted as extended eyes.

That's the upside.

There are a couple of downsides.

As you would expect, the navigator has the occasional off day (or more literally off route). We were visiting one of the houses the National Trust owns. These are usually in the country. The direction to the house was clearly signposted, but we decided to follow the navigator, which gaily took us the short cut - along farming county lanes. Now for those of you who don't know what these look like, farming roads are characterized by an enormous ridge of mud that builds up along the center of the road. This would have been OK if we'd owned a normal car, but we don't - it's a low slung Alfa Romeo. I hate to think what our sump shield looked like by the time we got to the house.

Finally, there's the entertainment factor. The normal voice of the Tom Tom is that of a well cultured female. 'Turn left after 200 yards', you are quietly instructed. 'At the next roundabout take the second exit', you are informed. When you get bored you can get alternative voices. We tried the 'Yoda' voice. 'At the next roundabout the second exit you must take'. It lasted about 10 minutes before we switched back to the nice lady.

This is all well and good as long as you are following directions. However, woe betide you if you stray from the beaten track. The nice lady is, of course, far too nice to throw insults at you, but she does get a bit emphatic. Initially she just thinks you've made a slight mistake. 'Turn around and retrace your route', she instructs. You ignore her. ' At the next opportunity turn around', she goes on to say. We continue towards the Supermarket we know is just off our route. You can imagine the nice lady getting slightly flustered. 'Please turn round', she quietly asks. Eventually she gives up and recalculates an alternative route. 'At the next junction turn left'; we ignore her and turn right. In all of this she retains a calm and dignified air.

In fact, I think the makers have missed a marketing opportunity here. Although you can get a John Cleese voice for the thing, it is still perfectly reasonable if you stray from your route, which is quite unlike John Cleese. What is needed is selectable voice modes - for example, 'reasonable', 'firm', 'rude', 'hysterical' and 'explosive'. In 'hysterical' mode John Cleese could get more and more - well - hysterical - as you drove further from the route before finally going into a sulk and switching off. The 'rude' mode would, of course, have to have a certificate rating. The 'Explosive' rating would only be for those who had enough money to buy a new one (come to think of it, you would just sell the 'explosive' mode for the same price as a new navigator).

The temptation in this would be, of course, to purposely take the wrong route just to learn some new swear words.

The only problem is that you have to question the ethics of this. I mean, there's clearly some form of rudimentary Artificial Intelligence in the electronics to enable it to calculate the routes. At what point does that AI break down? Could the occasional twitches of the screen be a sign that our nice lady is beginning to lose some of her iron self-control? Will she eventually break down and instead of nicely asking us to turn round tell us 'Listen, you stupid b****rs, turn round or I'll explode in your face'? Is there the navigator equivalent of the Psychiatrist's settee, where distraught navigators, reduced to a state of twitching electronics, can be slowly brought back to sanity? Is there some nice house in the country where severe cases wander the corridors murmuring quietly to themselves 'at the next corridor, take the second door on the left'?

Perhaps I should just switch the thing off if we digress from the route. It's only kindness.