GPS: The Must Have Present for '07

In Sweden at least, the must have Christmas present for this year is a personal GPS system. It's not the most blingy of presents; in fact it’s a bit of a geeky toy. I would have thought mobiles with extra big screens for watching TV would have been higher on people’s wish list.

It just goes to show that technology is becoming an ever more important part of our lives. We are now so used to having a phone, camera, radio, MP3 players, games machine etc... All at the tip of our fingers, it’s hard to remember how we lived without it. The humble home PC might soon be made obsolete as well as more stuff is crammed into phones and other mobile gadgets.

I bought a GPS system a couple of years ago to help us navigate our way around Europe with our Caravan. Originally my wife insisted we used the Swedish voice to give the directions as it would be good training for me. However, since the voice had a Stockholm accent and my wife is from Göteborg, she soon decided she didn't like some Stockholmer telling her where to go, so we changed the voice to English. The English voice has a very special ‘1940s BBC radio announcer’ kind of voice.

We call him Charles...