We visited Yosemite in May 2007. While taking on of these I heard an American woman behind me say “I guess they don’t have phones where they are from.” Hysterical.
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This is a contribution to the blog and comes from a London location. Dated 2009 when ‘Distict 9′ was released in the cinema.
Phone-henge
“This completely fabulous Stonehenge replica, playfully named Phonehenge, sits in the Freestyle Music Park (formerly the Hard Rock Park) in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It surrounds a large performance space in the British Invasion section of the park and is comprised of lots of red old-style British telephone boxes”. From Weburbanist.
You can also find details of this Park on the blog Clonehenge – a blog about Stonehenge replicas. My kind of people.
Cuba libre
Here are four from our recent trip to Cuba. Many people use the phones in Havana that line the shaded outside walls of buildings. My favourite are the blue half coconut shaped covers. They have bright yellow tourist taxis, called coca taxis, with a similar shape. I have also included a shot of a detail of the outside of the government telecom building in the streets behind the Capitole. As with most of the capital – the building was lovely but in dire need of a clean. This is a city melting with decrepitude. With a little restoration it would be one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
Middle East
A friend sent me this after she returned from a tour of the Silk Road some years ago.
Crete
I went to Crete in 2002, I think.
Tokyo
My husband took these on a business trip. The first is at Hibiya Park. In the second the green box would be used just for domestic calls and the gray for international, although now they’re usable for both.
Australia
Here are a couple of older shots from the Homeland. I think the first is in West End, Brisbane and my friend James (?) is on the phone. The next one might be Byron.
Spooky
I read this great little story in The Fortean Times last night. FT251, July 2009, p.77. Author-Darren Ryden:
“In the 80s a friend of mine decided to go hitchhiking around Europe, and on the way call in on some friends in Italy. After a row at work, he quit his job early and started travelling two weeks earlier than he had originally planned. One night, during a heavy downpour in Germany, he took shelter in a phone kiosk. The telephone rang and, having nothing better to do, he answered it, expecting to hear someone speaking German.
To his suprise, it was our mutual friend in Italy calling to check some arrangement on meeting up. It transpired our Italian friend, not knowing about his early depature, has simply dialled his home phone number and had somehow been connected to that particular public phone.
Our Italian friend phoned me straight after to check that this wasn’t a hoax and that our friend was indeed abroad, which I confirmed. To this day, none of us knows how it happened. Misdial a number and the odds of picking up a particular phone in another country must be infinitesimal.”
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