The box in Meols, Merseyside has been turned into a small museum honoring the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The box was their makeshift booking office in the early days and the box's number (6323003) was used in the song "Red Frame White Light"
"To this day, it is still likely the highest-charting song entirely about a public phone box."
- someone told me about a fish—n-chip buffet in Arbroath, Scotland
- I told my team, one of them asked “just fish?”
- I replied “batter fried pizza too”
- one of them made the inevitable comment about defibrillators
- I pointed out many of these red kiosks have been repurposed to hold defibrillators and went looking for images
“3 courses including Soup, Pizzas, Haddock, Spicy Fish,
White pudding, King Rib, Chefs dish of the day. Hot desserts with Custard, Cold desserts i.e trifle and cakes, Cold Meats, Pasta, Salad, Whippy Ice cream.”
I think OP is referring to this https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet which does appear to be a fish-n-chip buffet of sorts (amongst other things) which has been in various tabloid newspapers in the last month or so.
I was just thinking how it'd be great if there were newer, modern things like this that had sprung up in response to newer technologies.
I guess it's one downside of dematerialisation with digital tech - I can't think of a single thing that would make sense. Everyone's got their own virtual portal to all the new technologies that come out, there's not much to look at out in the world.
Maybe as more progress happens in physical 'world of atoms' type things we'll see a bit of this come back.
As someone that tries to survive (every day more difficult) with just a dumbphone with me, I just fantasized about a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone. Perhaps you tap a card, and it picks your accounts, and you can quickly Whatsapp someone, check your email, call an Uber or use Google Maps (maybe even check hacker news, but with time limit?!)
Maybe then many people would stop carrying their own portals, as you can briefly use the public ones for the one-off situation where you need it, but enjoy a portal-free mind the rest of the time. Also quite useful in case emergencies as it seems those portable-portals tend to run out of battery, or get lost or damaged...
There was a brief moment around the turn of the millennium where that was what some of us were expecting. I was in college just after that and there were some free Internet kiosks, which combined with the ubiquitous free-to-use computer labs on campus, did a pretty good job of making this type of lifestyle possible, to the extent you could store your important documents online (much harder though in a pre-Dropbox, pre-Google Docs world!). Or another thing that was a big trend then was Portable Apps. On a flash drive on your keychain, you'd have installs of apps that you needed, together with their data and whatever documents you might need.
I love seeing the occasional phone box in a quaint village which has been converted into a super compact library. It reminds me that community spirit and trust are alive.
There's one near the Houses of Parliament, tourists often shoot photos there, and are surprised when the inside is filled with stickers advertising prostitutes.
The box in Meols, Merseyside has been turned into a small museum honoring the band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. The box was their makeshift booking office in the early days and the box's number (6323003) was used in the song "Red Frame White Light"
"To this day, it is still likely the highest-charting song entirely about a public phone box."
https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2022/08/30/meols-merseyside-c...
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/omd-telephone-box
If curious why I posted this:
> someone told me about a fish-n-chip buffet in Arbroath, Scotland
if it’s the fish and chip shop (buffet is a different thing here), i’ve been there and they do a banging fish supper.
The Bellrock lunch buffet, £15 weekdays.
“3 courses including Soup, Pizzas, Haddock, Spicy Fish, White pudding, King Rib, Chefs dish of the day. Hot desserts with Custard, Cold desserts i.e trifle and cakes, Cold Meats, Pasta, Salad, Whippy Ice cream.”
https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet
I think OP is referring to this https://www.thebellrock.co.uk/lunch-buffet which does appear to be a fish-n-chip buffet of sorts (amongst other things) which has been in various tabloid newspapers in the last month or so.
I was just thinking how it'd be great if there were newer, modern things like this that had sprung up in response to newer technologies.
I guess it's one downside of dematerialisation with digital tech - I can't think of a single thing that would make sense. Everyone's got their own virtual portal to all the new technologies that come out, there's not much to look at out in the world.
Maybe as more progress happens in physical 'world of atoms' type things we'll see a bit of this come back.
As someone that tries to survive (every day more difficult) with just a dumbphone with me, I just fantasized about a parallel universe where all those kiosks still existed, and they were somehow like computer that you can briefly rent, to do the things people do with a smartphone. Perhaps you tap a card, and it picks your accounts, and you can quickly Whatsapp someone, check your email, call an Uber or use Google Maps (maybe even check hacker news, but with time limit?!)
Maybe then many people would stop carrying their own portals, as you can briefly use the public ones for the one-off situation where you need it, but enjoy a portal-free mind the rest of the time. Also quite useful in case emergencies as it seems those portable-portals tend to run out of battery, or get lost or damaged...
There was a brief moment around the turn of the millennium where that was what some of us were expecting. I was in college just after that and there were some free Internet kiosks, which combined with the ubiquitous free-to-use computer labs on campus, did a pretty good job of making this type of lifestyle possible, to the extent you could store your important documents online (much harder though in a pre-Dropbox, pre-Google Docs world!). Or another thing that was a big trend then was Portable Apps. On a flash drive on your keychain, you'd have installs of apps that you needed, together with their data and whatever documents you might need.
Some suggestions:
- Not sure what they're called, but I've seen a lot of fully automated outdoor "locker stations" for packet deliveries
- Power bank "banks" or charging stations for smartphones in indoor spaces like malls
- QR codes on stickers/ads in public spaces are a sort of bridge between the physical and digital worlds
How about:
Tesla Supercharger stations.
I love seeing the occasional phone box in a quaint village which has been converted into a super compact library. It reminds me that community spirit and trust are alive.
Actually here in Germany that the favourite use for our old yellow boxes, many have become book sharing hubs.
The ones in Hull are all cream coloured: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/2023/07/13/hull-university-ea...
The crowns are also ground off I think
https://www.kcom.com/about-us/history/ they were operated by a separate company, so the crown wasn't appropriate.
Someone pushed them all over:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rxcGDAc8Dv924zkv8
(It's art: https://secretldn.com/telephone-box-installation-kingston/)
Nice! Would be great if this had a map view as well.
Check the split by regions: https://www.thek6project.co.uk/where-are-all-the-boxes/
Love it!
There's one near the Houses of Parliament, tourists often shoot photos there, and are surprised when the inside is filled with stickers advertising prostitutes.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zLRxTFUXErcsrkCi7
To be fair, that's the authentic London telephone box experience of old.
I think the actual experience was stepping into human poo, needles and overwhelming stench of piss and let's not go into why the telephone was sticky.