I'm sure everyone has these odd extremely niche interests, things that just tickle you and stick in your brain for some reason. one of mine is british phone boxes. the classic ones are extremely iconic and great, but I am also mildly obsessed with the midcentury designs like the elusive K8 this article is about https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jul/20/four-london-underground-phone-kiosks-grade-ii-listed-status - next time I'm in kensington station(so uh, week after next?) I will be looking for the K8 box. just to look at it, and to think about the design of everyday public services.
if you are curious to know more, this website is extremely good(and frankly just a very nice website to look at) http://www.the-telephone-box.co.uk/
are you old enough to have actually used a phone box? I vividly recall going to the one near my flatshare in cambridge one dark evening with a pocketful of coins to call my mum(an international call!!) - I guess my mobile was out of action for some reason or I had run out of credit or something. I developed an affection for that box - it was one of the horrible modern designs, alas - but last time I glanced through on google street view, it was gone.
This is one of my most specifically of a time memories. Because it's a time when public phones did still exist, but were offering more way to pay than just change, but not anything like using a normal bank card. And I doodled a design that was about fireworks in the sky for celebrating the new millenium.
As a result, I know I was exactly 9 years old at the time, which meant that my prize of a £20³ calling card felt insulting. So my parents just gave me cash in exchange for a card that I'm not even sure they used.
- Now called eir and offer a mobile phone network you do not want to use.
- It looks like you can browse a gallery of them actually, that's the source of the one now embedded in this post.
- That's Irish pounds, not British. It was our currency which soon would not exist as we would adopt the Euro instead.