The link to food is a bit tenuous we know, but since it features shortbread, that’s our excuse for telling you about a wonderful and whacky idea by BT to transform the London’s red telephone boxes into works of art.
BT have commissioned a team of artists to transform replica phone boxes into pieces of art which are on display all over London until 18th July when they will be auctioned off in aid of Childline.
We like the tartan one produced by Michael Sanders, though we have to declare that he’s a friend of ours. His phone box is clad entirely in tartan, not any old tartan, but ‘Polaris Military’ tartan, a design that was cheekily commissioned in 1964 by the US military when they were based at Holyloch in Scotland.
According to Michael, ‘It was the first time a tartan had been registered to a ship and a nuclear weapons system. Apparently the registrar hit the roof’. He explains: ‘the dark green in the pattern represents the ocean deeps, the blue is Navy Blue and the yellow and light blue are the blue and gold watches on nuclear submarines’. A red telephone is embedded in the side of the box with the caption: ‘The most awesome, powerful responsibility in the world lies in the hand that picks up this phone’ and for a little light relief and gently sending up the cliché of Scottish shortbread, a box contains a Vulcan bomber, a Polaris submarine and a CND symbol, all made out of shortbread. We like it.
You can see the Michael’s COLDWARmHOTLINE on Victoria Embankment