19 July 2022

I'll Hold


Come on, admit it. You’ve done it yourself. You have been put on hold and when you overcome the initial mild irritation you find that you’re listening to something that makes you want to slip in to the groove.  So it is with Daniel who finds that a blast from the past proves irresistible.  I’ll Hold was written, directed and danced by Daniel Cloud Campos (and if there was any more polymathy on display we would probably have to order a hit instead of a pizza…)

16 June 2012

Telephone Boxes Invade London

The UK has just had the Queen’s Jubilee which was a great success (albeit a rather soggy one) and the celebrations continue. The London Olympics are just around the corner and to anticipate that and simply to keep the flag flying (as it were) British Telecom have launched an art project the aim of which is to revitalize that most British of icons, the telephone box. And, of course, to raise an awful lot of money for charity!

Known as the ArtBox Project, replicas of the famous Gilbert Scott box have been placed all over London.  There is something of a throng of them (we’re not sure what the collective noun is for telephone boxes!) at the moment at Trafalgar Square in the heart of the city’s West End.

After the Olympics these telephone boxes will then be auctioned off for charity. The organisation which will benefit is ChildLine, a service for young people which helps them get help and advice about a wide range of issues.  The charity is celebrating its own silver jubilee (twenty five years) this year and is a very worthy recipient of the monies which will be raised.

You certainly don't see this sort of thing often. Here we have Big Ben in the shadow of, well, Big Ben!

So here is a selection of the ArtBox boxes. We’ll be bringing you more as we seem them! If you would like to see all of them or register your interest in participating in the auction for one of them, click here.



First Image Credit Flickr User CTRL-F5

4 September 2011

1920s Design, 21st Century Technology

A telephone from the 1920s.  A simple yet elegant design, timeless but at the same moment very much of its own era.

While the Apple fans of this century drool over every new ultra modern looking product from the ubiquitous company some people harken back to a time when communication hardware was pleasing to the eye and stylish in an altogether different way.

Yet why not mix and match?  Adam Ben-Dror a South-African born designer and inventor who now lives in New Zealand has done just that. Ben-Dror has taken the beauty and utility of the 1920s design and added nothing to it: except all the technology that is needed to make it wireless.

If you take a look at what lies within the almost century old design you will see that certain changes have been made to the phones functionality. These changes enable the user to have twenty first century connectivity with the glamor of chich 1920s design.

The cordless candlestick phone is a old-world design housing truly twenty first century technology - a 2.4ghz wireless transceiver to form a truly fantastic yet functional piece. The original aesthetic of the phone has been left by Ben-Dror to do what it has always done. The only indication that anything has been changed is the cord – it isn’t there anymore.

When everything is tucked away it looks exactly the same as it did almost a century ago. The transceiver allows the 90 year old phone to be used wirelessly. A pulse to DTMF converter (built into base) allows the dial to work. Calls are answered by lifting the earpiece from its cradle and it is ended by putting it back. Redial and speed dial are activated by dialing and holding selected numbers.

Take a look at Adam Ben-Dror's website which features this phone and other projects too.