The red telephone box, a telephone kiosk for a public telephone designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, is a familiar sight on the streets of the United Kingdom, Malta, Bermuda and Gibraltar, and despite a reduction in their numbers in recent years, red boxes can still be seen in many places throughout the UK, and in current or former British colonies around the world. The colour red was chosen to make them easy to spot.
Read more about Red Telephone Box: Design History, Red Telephone Boxes Elsewhere, Replica Telephone Boxes, Gallery
Famous quotes containing the words red, telephone and/or box:
“The curse of hell upon the sleek upstart
That got the Captain finally on his back
And took the red red vitals of his heart
And made the kites to whet their beaks clack clack.”
—John Crowe Ransom (1888–1974)
“It’s a hard feeling when everyone’s in a hurry to talk to somebody else, but not to talk to you. Sometimes you get a feeling of need to talk to somebody. Somebody who wants to listen to you other than “Why didn’t you get me the right number?””
—Heather Lamb, U.S. telephone operator. As quoted in Working, book 2, by Studs Terkel (1973)
“We are little airy creatures,
All of different voice and features:
One of us in glass is set,
One of us you’ll find in jet,
T’other you may see in tin,
And the fourth a box within;
If the fifth you should pursue,
It can never fly from you.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)