Bunhill: Hawking the message for BT

ACCORDING to British Telecom, Professor Stephen Hawking is 'a very powerful metaphor' for the company.

Hawking, who speaks through a voice synthesiser having had a tracheotomy some years ago, has agreed to appear in a BT commercial due out this month.

In the TV ad, Hawking, whose book A Brief History of Time holds the record for the most weeks in the bestsellers' list, tells how some of the greatest human achievements have come about through talking - and some of the worst failures through silence.

Hawking has never been in a commercial, and his fee is a secret. Hawking will not endorse a BT product or service, but he does appear in front of a BT satellite dish - a backdrop that appears out of time for a man from the old lecture-halls of Cambridge.

(Photograph omitted)