Archive for April 21st, 2011

Wojah weebawn

April 21st, 2011

One or two of you may remember that I wrote recently about the death of Roger.

For the one or two of you who give a shite, Roger was my SatNav who faithfully navigated me around Ireland and France, and did his best to kill me in the process.

I decided I needed Roger as we will be trotting off onto the continent again this Summer, and I confess I find it quite difficult navigating motorways while reading a huge Michelin map at the same time.  The map tends to obscure the view.

The new Roger arrived the other day.  The main reason I chose the model is that it has a larger screen, but it does have some other interesting features.  One of those features is voice recognition.  Naturally I had to try this out.

“Howya Roger” I shouted at it.

Nothing happened.

I tried a few more times, and eventually Roger responded, but only when I was holding the yoke in front of my mouth and yelling at the top of my voice.  Not good.

I tried it again yesterday, while our K8 was in the car.  Naturally she wasn’t impressed.  She rarely is.  She asked if I had to train it, and I said that no, it was supposed to understand me straight away.

“Maybe it’s your accent?” she suggested.

I pointed out that I don’t have an accent.

She replied that maybe that was the problem.  She asked what options there were.  I replied that I was given a choice of a load of languages including English [American] or English [British].  She asked if there was an English [Ireland] and I confessed that there wasn’t.

“There’s your answer” says she, “Try using an English accent”.

I tried that out last night.  I tried a Geordie accent.  No joy. I tried a Brummie accent [reputed to be the ugliest accent in the UK] and fortunately that didn’t work as it gave me throat ache.  I ran the gamut of the various accents from Norfolk to Cornwall and eventually Roger started responding. 

The English have a peculiar habit of losing their Rs, unless they are from the West Country.  [No jokes about knowing their Rs from their elbows, please…]   I ended up sounding like a Public School Jonathan Ross on steroids.

“Aaah yoo theyah, Wojah?” I would shout.  And Roger would respond.  Every time.

“White Wojah! Diwect me to the jolly old pub” I would shout.  Roger would resume his muteness.

I can see I will have my work cut out training Roger.

Or maybe I’ll just go back to tapping the screen.

*sigh*