Britain’s symbolic red phone boxes have become out of date in the age of the mobile, but villages across the country are stepping in to save them, with creative intelligence. Whether as a place to exhibit art, poetry, or even as a tiny library, hundreds of phone boxes have been given a new life by local communities determined to preserve a typical part of British life. In Waterperry, a small village near Oxford, the 120 residents have filled the phone box next to the old house with a pot of flowers, piles of gardening and cooking magazines, and stuck poems on the walls.
They took control of the phone box when telecoms operator BT said it was going to pull it down, an announcement that caused such dissatisfaction that one local woman threatened to chain herself to the box to save it. “I’d have done it, “ insisted Kendall Turner. “It would have been heartbreaking for the village. “ Local councilor Tricia Hallam, who came up with the idea for the phone box’s change, said quite a few people would have joined her, adding, “ We couldn’t let it go because it’s a British symbol.”
Only three feet by three feet wide, and standing 2.51-meter tall, the phone boxes were designed by Giles Gilbert Scott in 1936 for the 25th anniversary of the reign of King George V. Painted in “Post Office red” to match the post boxes, they were once a typical image of England and the backdrop(背景) to millions of tourist photographs.
Eight years ago there were about 17,000 across Britain, but today, in a country where almost everybody has a mobile phone, 58 percent are no longer profitable and ten percent are only used once a month. “On average, maintaining them costs ￡800 a year per phone box-about ￡44 million annually,” said John Lumb, general manager for BT Payphones.
小题1:Some red phone boxes in Britain have been used for ____.
a. selling flowers b. cooking c. reading d. exhibiting art or poetry| A．a, b | B．c, d | C．a,b,c | D．b,c,d |
小题2:Why do the villagers want to keep the red phone boxes?| A．Because millions of people visit Britain to see the red phone boxes. | | B．Because the local people could earn a lot of money from the red phone boxes. | | C．Because the red phone boxes have already become a symbol of Britain. | | D．Because the red phone boxes may be useful for some people in emergency. |
小题3:What is the color of the British post boxes according to the passage?| A．Green | B．Red | C．Black | D．Yellow |
小题4:What is John Lumb’s attitude towards pulling down the red phone boxes?| A．supportive | B．Opposed | C．Neutral | D．Indifferent. |
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