Meme Anarchy

[hobot]

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[veni vidi vici]

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[00seven]

I love watching British TV shows from the pre-cell phone era - those red booths out in the middle of nowhere.

Driving along a road in the emptiness of the Yorkshire moors and there's a red phone booth.

I imagine it was the only country in the world that did that.

Now?

View attachment 540309

Sad - they were iconic. almost as much as the flag.

Had them in Aussie. Collectors' item these days.

 

[167149]

Had them in Aussie. Collectors' item these days.

ditto in NZ oh and the Falklands

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

50 years of orelhão: brazil's iconic egg-shaped telephone booth designed by chu ming silveira

www.designboom.com

Oi! In love with a Brazilian ear

Let's fly to Brazil to meet a local star. It's neither the Cristo Redentor, nor Gilberto Gil, Pelé or even Giselle Bündchen. Meet the famous orelhões.

www.grapheine.com

Orelhão - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SloopJonB]

Had them in Aussie. Collectors' item these days.

Did you run across them in the outback, miles from nowhere?

 

[Sean]

‘

 

[00seven]

Did you run across them in the outback, miles from nowhere?

Yes. I gotta say though, trying to compare Aussie outback with Brit country lanes is a hell of a reach.

 

[00seven]

The modern iteration...

 

[Grande Mastere Dreade]

i liked the blues ones better

 

[hobot]

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[steele]

Our local phone company has maintained a series of phone booths on the Island. Local calls are free.

 

[Bump-n-Grind]

i liked the blues ones better

are they bigger on the inside?

 

[00seven]

 

[167149]

And hookin up!
Long Beach in the 60's there were phone numbers used by Ma Bell service techs to perform line maintenance/trouble-shooting. Numbers would leak out and they were 'trunk lines' where hundreds of hormone charged kids could be on the line at the same time screaming "what's your number?" hoping to hear one in all the kaos so you could call them and flirt in private. Talk about blind speed dating.....

Another payphone trick, (don't know if it works anymore) take a paper clip, unfold it, stick one end thru the mouthpiece and touch the metal diaphragm and ground the other end into the keyhole for the coinbox and voila free phone calls.

one trick that worked well down in NZ was to take an ice block stick (2mm thickx 12mm wide x 200 mm ish long and slip it in next to button B and give it an upflick when they answered..... voila free ph calls

 

[Ishmael]

Well, that was fascinating.

 

[tane]

you cou

We called them party lines - great for listening in on the neighbours.

you could not call any of the other 3 "1/4-phones" you shared the line with

 

[tane]

& while we are there:
there was this phonebooth in Brisbane (Ipswich Road?) during the 83/84 cyclone season, that gave you unlimited talking time on your first coin. Quite popular with us visiting yachties & immigrants, always had a queue, but everyone waited patiently in line. I don't know how long it took the company to catch up on that. It was a main road & a 5-15 people queue would make anybody suspicious. Must have "worked" for a few weeks.

 

[tane]

& while we are there:
in 80, 81 or so they "modernised" the phones in the booths here in the forest, LCD readouts,... & some genius came up with the idea to push a thin wire into the coin slot, shold one of those piezo-electrically ignited cigarette lighters (the "professionals" used a piezo gas lighter) against your end of the wire - & click, you had a nicely amount of "Schilling"s as credit.
This way I could afford to call Thomas Foulkes, the chandlery in London...(internat. calls were quite expensive & my budget quite low in those days...)

Alas...now you can sail past Makatea (look up where that is), your phone logs into the cell & you can call, wherever you want to, get a forecast,...

 

[hobot]

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