'We've had villages the length and breadth of Britain strip payphones out of their boxes and replace them with mini-libraries," said Eric Page-Turner, owner of Dead Tree Books in Poplar. "It's ruined our sales of moronic Danielle Steel and Jeffrey Archer novels.
'So my competitors and I have decided to turn the tables and install payphones in our bookshops.
'They've gone down a storm with people whose mobiles have run out of juice, old folk who feel nostalgic for the sound of the warning pips and hipsters from Shoreditch who think it's cool and retro to feed 50p pieces into a slot so they can babble to their friends about computer programming. Our takings have doubled overnight."
The only mood reducing moment, according to Page-Turner, was when a delegation of raddled blondes in miniskirts and fishnet stockings arrived to tell him that no payphone was complete unless littered with advertisements for whips and leather and "quickies for a monkey".
'Something told me," said Page-Turner, "that they weren't BT engineers.'
photo: Newsbiscuit Archive
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