You must feel sorry for the poor souls of a popular TV series when it stops transmitting. Especially those in supporting roles who are cast aside without so much as a 'by your leave.' It is therefore, good news to hear that ex-Dr Who Tom Baker has managed to escape the lure of the dole queue after losing his pension supplement now that Little Britain has finished.

After three resoundingly successful series it would have been a shame to see 72-year-old Baker joining the Post Office shuffle. In fact the British cult icon turned British comedy icon has managed to up his ante even further.

After a recent poll of recognisable voices, Baker came in a strong fourth after the Queen, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher. That has to be partly thanks to the likes of Llandewi Breffi, Darkly Noone and Herby City.

Now he makes this finely crafted vocal art available to the whole of Britain as he has been employed by BT to be the official voice of text messages sent to UK landlines.

Baker was required to record for 11 days, relaying 11,593 phrases to encompass every sound in the English language. It took the BT engineers a further five months to process his regal tones so their computers could have him 'say' any word texted including the likes of 'homosexualist' and ' rubbish transvestite'.

Lazy text speak like, 'c u l8r,' is handled by the translator as well as, 'xx,' which would result in Tom saying 'kiss kiss' into your earhole.

However, his voice is only a loaner for three months but will no doubt assist in the leap from the 82 million texts of last year to this year's expected 100 million.

One wonders if this is to beset a trend of celebrity voices. Who's next? Vicky Pollard?