Curtains for Basil in hotel techno stakes

John Cleese has criticised hotel-room technology after he found it impossible to close a pair of curtains.

Cleese, known for playing ranting hotel manager Basil Fawlty, told how he ended up calling for help from his hotel desk.

The 'Monty Python' star is presenting a series about gadgets – but admitted he only started sending text messages in the last six months.

“I recently stayed at this hotel in Pasadena,” Cleese told the 'Radio Times', “and I wanted to close the curtains in my room.

“But, try as I might, I couldn’t pull them together. I figured there must be a remote device, so I went around the room in search of such a thing.

“I found one that controlled the DVD player and another for the iPod dock, but nothing that would help me close these bloody curtains.

“Eventually I called the hotel desk. A few minutes later, this chap knocked on my door.

“He walked over to what looked like an air-con unit, flicked a switch and, hey presto, the curtains shut.

“He gave me a look of withering pity. I could see him thinking ’Jeez, who is this idiot?’

“And I’m left wondering, wouldn’t it have been easier for everyone if I’d simply been able to pull them shut in the first place?”

Cleese is hosting a six-part series on gadgets including shower curtains that can be used as diaries and mobile phones with halitosis detectors – called 'Batteries Not Included' on the Dave TV channel.

“I had a lot of fun making this show, but I’m afraid I don’t have the faintest idea what it’s called,” he told the magazine. “Is it called Dave? Dave’s the TV channel? How peculiar.”

Cleese said he was not that good with gadgets, adding: “Maybe people assume I am because I played the Q character in a Bond movie ('Die Another Day').

“It took quite a lot of effort to play a gadget-meister because I was hopeless with them on the set.

“I do operate something called the iPhone and I possess an iPod, but I haven’t used it in a while.

“Only in the past six months have I started texting. I do my own podcasts and blogs, but all I do is provide the content for them.”

Asked how his 'Fawlty Towers' character might cope with modern-day gadgets, Cleese said: “Just imagine how Basil would react to someone doing something so commonplace as using a mobile phone in a restaurant.

“He’d explode with fury. And rightly so, in my opinion.”