Hotel sold to fans

Fans of British TV comedy series Fawlty Towers have bought the hotel that inspired the show for some 1.5 million ($4.02 million), the new owners said. Husband-and-wife supermarket entrepreneurs Kumar and Panna Patel and Kumar's brother Keethri bought the Hotel Gleneagles in Torquay, southwest England.

"We were big fans of the Fawlty Towers programme so we believe it will prove to be a sound investment to have bought one of the best known hotels in Britain," Panna Patel said.

John Cleese, who starred in the series, based his outrageously rude character Basil Fawlty on a former owner of the hotel after staying there with other members of the Monty Python comedy team in 1971.