The Evening Standard (15 June 2015, p.3) reports of US tourist Stephen Jensen proposing to his girlfriend Megan Shuldes in from of Big Ben (I had just visited Big Ben with family). But for our purposes it was in front of a classic red, telephone box.
As a former librarian I warm to this story.
Phone box library closure threat angers residents
Book lovers who turned a red phone box into a makeshift library are angry after BT threatened to shut it down due to health and safety fears…
A photo taken at Swan Park, Buncrana, County Donegal, Eire (courtesy of Fortean Times, Christmas 2014, p.69):
Celebration of Welsh phone boxes fails to sell a single copy
Publishers of Fast Disappearing Red Telephone Boxes of Wales 2014 have admitted they might have misjudged their target market after failing to shift a single unit of the niche calendar since it hit shops in September….
I would by a copy but can’t find a link to it anywhere!
This is a post box story that tickles my fancy so I thought I should share it…
A red letter box suddenly appears in the middle of a bridge in Berkshire.
Uri Geller and other villagers have been left confused by the sudden arrival of a red letter box in the middle of a bridge.
The box has been placed a metre above the water on a parapet of the bridge, which crosses the River Thames in Berkshire.
People in Sonning-on-Thames said that the box can only be accessed by boat users.
Geller, who has lived in the village for 33 years, told BBC News he had “never seen anything like it”.
“This is a very unusual village. There are many sightings of a child ghost that walks on the bridge,” he commented.
“Maybe it was the ghost of a mischievous little girl? I have never seen anything like this anywhere in the world, it’s a new one on me.”
Royal Mail spokesperson Val Bodden said: “The recent appearance of a post box frontage on the side of the river bridge at Sonning is a mystery to us.
“It is certainly not an operational posting facility and we have no knowledge of how it arrived at this location.”
BY TOM EAMES10/09/2013
“Alan Wolfson is a master of the miniature. His urban sculptures are tiny, incredibly detailed views of the mundane city landmarks that urban citizens interact with on a daily basis…”
These models include phone boxes (of course).
Click here for ‘tiny streets’.
Alan Wolfson miniatures
We recently visited the IoW where there is a funky model village in the town of Godshill. Of corse it has it’s own communications…
Godshill
Freestyle Music Park, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
“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” (http://weburbanist.com/2009/09/03/clonehenges-20-creative-recreations-of-stonehenge/)
Coming out of the phone booth: phone box references in modern subculture
There is an article in the latest ‘Fortean Times’ (Krulos, T. 2014. Heroes in the night. In: Fortean Times, Vol. 314 May 2014, pp.28-35) which discusses the modern phenomenon of Real Life Superheroes (people who dress in the style of a superhero and roam the streets looking to fight crime). What amused me was the coining of the term ‘coming out of the phone booth’ – used to refer to the time when you reveal your lifestyle to your friends and family.
Comments Off on Coming out of the phone booth: phone box references in modern subculture
Posted in Comment, News
Tagged curiosity