Or at least it used to be. When was the last time I had to use a phone box. I actually can't remember. Probably from a railway station somewhere in the sixties, perhaps the seventies. But with the arrival of the mobile my allegiance changed.
Apparently there are still 65,000 red phone boxes in the UK and 8,000 in London. Seems the traditional reds have become synonymous with anti-social behaviour and are no longer a positive addition to public spaces. Hello to the trendy greens, otherwise known as the Solarbox, which by all accounts are reversing this trend, and are bringing a quintessentially piece of British design up to date. When we're in London this summer, we'll have to check one out for ourselves.
Here in France, the big telecommunications company, Orange, wants to finish with most of the phone booths by the end of 2015. Some will be kept going according to their strategic importance and daily usage levels, which must be more than three minutes per day. Phone booths positioned in hotels and stations will disappear by the end of December 2016.
While waiting for the changes to be introduced, the French have found another use for the booths. Some have been transformed into mini libraries, with people depositing and taking books freely. Phones and books, two great forms of communication, side by side.
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