Mobile Phone Blog:

Public telephones have been somewhat out of vogue, ever since the mobile phone more or less replaced them. Since approximately 400% (I’m guessing at the actual figure) of the UK’s population now has a mobile phone, it’s pretty damning evidence that the mobile has more or less replaced the humble phone box, which has been pretty much relegated to being somewhere for extremely drunk men to use as a public lavvy if the bus shelter’s full.

Trust me, I speak as an expert witness here; ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, some of the things I’ve seen when I’ve been out gigging with various bands, it’d make your hair turn white…

Ah, but those are the modern, all-glass, boring phone boxes. They’re not what most people over a certain age (and yes, that includes me) think of as phone boxes. What we think of is the big, red box. You know the one. The one that’s, apparently, officially called the K6. It’s quintessentially English (well, ok, and Scottish, Welsh and Irish, too), just like The Italian Job, double-decker buses, proper tea with milk and sugar in it (ie/ the elixir of life itself… none of this lemon rubbish) and urban streets becoming warzones round about pub-chucking-out time.

Well, in a fine display of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” spirit, the red phone box has infiltrated the world of mobile phones, according to Pocket Lint. And the end result is a mobile phone that speaks to something deep within my soul, and makes me get all misty-eyed for the halcyon days of having to use my BT phone card, because I didn’t have a mobile back in them olde times. Great days, they were, great days! Hell, they’ve even named it after a Clash song.

Yup, it’s the London Calling mobile phone. Let’s set aside for a second the fact that its feature list is a bit, well, sparse. Let’s set aside the fact that it’d probably take about fifty of these to equal one Toshiba TG01 (my new yardstick for mobile phone power, that).

Let’s just revel in the fact that it has loads of iconically British wallpapers. Or in the fact that it has Rule Britannia and other such patriotic jingles as ringtones. My chest is swelling with pride at the sheer Englishness running through my body right now. America may have the Big Mac and Uncle Sam, and Australia may have meat pie floaters, a gorgeously designed opera house and dropbears, but Britain’s got fish and chips, The Beatles, The Wurzels and the red telephone box. It’s as much part of our heritage as the act of bringing countries under the relentless yolk of imperial oppression, thanks to the cunning use of flags (thanks to Bill Bailey and Eddie Izzard for the two individual parts of that statement).

So, in conclusion, it may well be utterly awful as a phone (and I suspect it will be), but there’s no phone as inherently British, and therefore brilliant, as the London Calling mobile…

Do you remember the iconic red telephone box? Do you feel an urge to salute whenever Charlie Croker’s escaping Turin in The Italian Job? Leave us a comment and have your say!