Classic red yields to digital ads on London’s new-look phone booths; some see a ‘blot on the landscape’

Today's expression: To put it mildly
Explore more: Lesson #92
October 8, 2018:

Classic-red phone booths are giving way to a new type of touch-screen kiosk on the streets of London. But the new kiosks are covered in digital ads and lack the stately charm London's phone booths had been known for. Some critics think they are visual pollution and a "blot on the landscape." Learn the English expression, "to put it mildly."

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Quick: what do you think of when you think of London?

So what is it? What’s the symbol of London? You might have said Big Ben, the famous clocktower. Maybe you might have said the double-decker bus. If you’re a little younger, maybe the London Eye is your symbol of the city. But I bet some of you probably thought about the elegant red phone booths that used to be all over the city. Those phone booths are becoming a thing of the past, as the telephone companies are replacing them with kiosks covered in digital advertising. Yuck. And as you might imagine not everyone is happy about it.

Welcome to episode 92 of Plain English, the best podcast for learning English. That’s my opinion anyway. Here’s what we do here: we talk about one topic in the news and then afterward we go over an English expression or phrasal verb that came up in the main part of the program. Today’s expression is a good one: “to put it mildly.” This is tough, but I know you’ll get it. Anyway, each Monday and Thursday we do one topic in the news followed by a phrasal verb or English expression. And by listening to a wide variety of topics, you’ll get used to hearing English vocabulary in many different contexts and settings.

So if you have not yet clicked “subscribe” in your Apple Podcasts app, or “follow” in Spotify, do so now, so that you always have the latest episodes. Today, like I said, is episode 92 and that means you can find our transcripts online at PlainEnglish.com/92.


New look for London’s classic phone booths

When’s the last time you placed a call from a telephone booth? I bet more than a few of you never have. You’ve never had the pleasure of walking on the street, going into a little booth, feeding coins into a solid metal box, and dialing a number—then straining to understand the person on the other end of the line.

I can’t remember the last time I used a phone booth; it’s not the kind of occasion you would typically remember, but it would probably have been before I got my first cell phone in 2003. And for good reason: the world has moved on from that technology. But across many parts of the world, the infrastructure—the actual phone booths and the connections that made the phone work—are still there. So what to do with them? Rip them out? Leave them there? Adapt them to the present-day?

Phone booths are at the center of a battle across England, especially in London, and especially in the historic center of Westminster. It’s a particularly sensitive subject here because the phone booths in London are so symbolic. They are sturdy, bright red, with curved tops, and paned glass. I asked you to think about the symbols of London at the beginning of the episode, and the London phone booth is definitely one of the most popular.

But no more: gone are the classic telephone booths, replaced with something for the modern age. So what does the phone booth for the modern age look like? If you guess that it’s covered in digital advertising, you would be correct.

The new phone booths are slim and have digital screens flashing ads on two sides; they have a touch screen for maps and have internet connectivity. But the critics say they are an eyesore: they are just ugly electronic billboards where there was once the stately, well-designed London phone booth. A pessimist might say the phone companies are installing internet access and maps just to give them an excuse to post advertising. Very few people need internet access or maps on the streets these days, what with the proliferation of smartphones. One government official in Westminster called them “a blot on the landscape” and said the phone handsets are just an excuse to post big billboards. On just one block, there are six so-called phone booths.

One of the designs is actually an import from New York, where you can charge your phone, connect to the internet, and do a couple of basic things. From my time living in New York, I don’t remember seeing a whole lot of people using them. Those who did tended to linger around them all day, which was not the intended use of these kiosks.

If cities hate the idea, why not just tell the phone companies to take them down or change them? The tricky part is that the phone companies have special legal protections, dating back to a time when copper wire phone service really was a vital public service. The traditional, legacy phone companies have the right to put their own services in the public way. So the phone companies got smart—if “smart” is the right word—and started putting these so-called kiosks every hundred feet on crowded streets, purely for the advertising. That is, to put it mildly, not in the spirit of the original law.

The phone companies, of course, have a different opinion. They say they are providing businesspeople and tourists with the information they need as they move around the bustling center of the city. They say these are more useful than the old traditional phone booths. Critics say they’d rather have a tree instead of an electronic billboard.

The British government is now looking into a way to change the law that heavily favors the telephone company. I would say the time is right for a modern company to re-think what people in the 21st century really need on the street of a major city. So many of us have smartphones; but not everyone has international phone service. Some people will lose their phone and might need to contact friends or relatives in an emergency. Maybe you just need a charge. I bet the time is right for a company to sit down, survey users, think about what exactly can be of use for the modern day.


If you are in London and you’re bothered by the eyesore that is these new kiosks, take heart. It could be worse; you could be in Paris, where they’re installing urinals all over the sidewalks. I thought about that for an episode, until I realized I didn’t want to spend two hours reading and writing about that particular topic.

I have some big big big thank you’s this week, and they are to the five people who left reviews for Plain English on Apple Podcasts in the last month or so. Unfortunately the system doesn’t capture people’s full names unless you voluntarily put your name in the review, so I can’t say thanks by name to everyone. But I did want to say thank you to Patrick from France (sorry I just made a joke about your capital city); Eduardo from Chile; Raznava from Peru; and one more listener from France and another from Bogota, Colombia, all who left great reviews for Plain English in the last month or two.

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Expression: To put it mildly