George Foreman - Richard Nixon - Howard Rheingold - Armoured Car Robbery 1950 - Charley Varrick 1973 - The Royle Family TV - The Office US - Alexander Graham Bell - CNN News - Rab C Nesbitt TV - Fran Lebowitz - My Phone Sex Secrets TV - Woody Allen & Play It Again Sam 1972 - George W Bush - Virginia Woolf - ET: The Extra-terrestrial 1982 - Vice: State of Surveillance TV - Spitting Image TV - Timeshift TV - How We Got to Now With Steven Johnson TV - Great Britons: Alexander Graham Bell TV - A Bittersweet Life 2005 - The Corbett Report - Dr Strangelove 1963 - Fred Dinenage TV -
My kids idea of a hard life is to live in a house with only one phone. George Foreman
Hello, Neil and Buzz. I’m talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House. I just can’t tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. Richard Nixon
It turns out that people overwhelmingly are not that interested in communicating with information, people are interested in communicating with each other. Howard Rheingold, author The Virtual Community, interview Horizon: The Electronic Frontier, BBC 1993
Sunset 7-2131. Armored Car Robbery 1950 starring Charles McGraw & Adele Jergens & William Talman & Douglas Fowley & Steve Brodie & Don McGuire & Don Haggerty & James Flavin et al, director Richard Fleischer
It’s probably an obscene phone call. Charley Varrick 1973 starring Walter Matthau & Joe Don Baker & Andy Robinson & John Vernon & Sheree North & Felicia Farr & Norman Fell & Woodrow Parfrey & William Schallert et al, director Don Siegel, old lady to Matthau
£98: it’s good to talk, my arse. The Royle Family s1e1: Bills Bills Bills, Jim with phone bill, BBC 1998
Who’s been ringing Aberdeen? ibid.
The company has a policy against eight-hour personal calls. The Office US s5e7: Customer Survey, Pam, NBC 2008
Mr Watson, come here, I want you. Alexander Graham Bell 1847-1922, first words spoken on telephone 10th March 1876
Does it concern you that your telephone company may be providing your phone records to the government without your knowledge and permission? CNN News ‘Privacy on the Line’, Cafferty File
The telephone is an instrument of torture: it offers hope and denies it at the same time. You wait. And you go on waiting but the call never comes. Rab C Nesbitt s5e6: Father, BBC 1996
As a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear that the phone is for you. Fran Lebowitz
Women in their droves are using creativity, business acumen and a good phone manner to earn enough money to keep their heads above water. My Phone Sex Secrets, Channel 4 2012
Hello, George? Did they agree to the terms? Oh hell. If we blow it, we blow it. Let me tell you where you can reach me, George. I’ll be at 3629296 for a while, then I’ll be at 6480024 for about 15 minutes, then I’ll be at 7520420, and then I’ll be home at 6214598. Play It Again, Sam 1972 starring Woody Allen & Diane Keaton & Tony Roberts & Susan Anspach & Jerry Lacy & Jennifer Salt & Joy Bang & Viva & Susanne Zennor & Diana Davila, director Herbert Ross
The government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval. George W Bush
The telephone, which interrupts the most serious conversations and cuts short the most weighty observations, has a romance of its own. Virginia Woolf
ET, phone home. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial 1982 starring Dee Wallace & Peter Coyote & Robert MacNaughton & Drew Barrymore & Henry Thomas & et al, director Steven Spielberg, little dude
You might have bought the phone but whoever hacked it, they’re the ones that own it … If your phone had been hacked, you would never know it. Vice: State of Surveillance, Edward Snowden, HBO 2016
Apple has the exclusive technical means to get into this phone. ibid.
They moved from the exceptional surveillance to the surveillance of everyone. ibid.
IMSI catcher: every police department in the United States seems to be buying these things these days. ibid.
Frequently they’re monitoring protesters rather than violent criminals. ibid.
If you think it’s ‘good to talk’, call Bob Hoskins at four in the morning on 0171 474 1090. Spitting Image s17e5, ITV 1994
The telephone – how could we live without it? Incredibly, there was a time when phones weren’t pocket-size wireless devices but bulky objects wired into our homes and workplaces. Historians call this distant era the Age of the Landline. Timeshift, Dial B For Britain: The Story of the Landline, BBC 2017
‘I think it’s abominable. I think it’s costly, I think it’s a thundering nuisance.’ ibid.
Yet telephones were originally regarded with suspicion. ibid.
The phone companies had very particular requirements: women would be recruited as operators for decades to come. ibid.
In 1936 the GPO again showcased its technical prowess and eye for publicity to launch the most famous service of all – the speaking clock. ibid.
There just wasn’t the capacity to give everyone a phone. ibid.
Trim Ringer Illuminated Model – Trimphone. ibid.
What had once been a service was now very much a business. ibid.
The human voice could be sent along a telegraph wire: Alexander Graham Bell had just invented the telephone. How We Got to Now with Steven Johnson s1e5: Sound, BBC 2018
In 1876 just a few words revolutionised communication for ever. ‘Mr Watson, come here, I want to see you.’ The first phrase spoken by Alexander Graham Bell into his invention. He knew he had seen the future. Great Britons s1e2: Alexander Graham Bell: Voice of Invention, BBC 2002
Bell experimented with the concept he called the Harmonic Telegraph. ibid.
You know who I’m calling, don’t you? Any last words? A Bittersweet Life 2005 starring Lee Byung-hun & Kim Yeong-cheol & Shin Min-ah & Hwang Jung-min & Kim Roi-ha & Jin Goo & Kee Ki-young & Oh Dal-su & Kim Hae-hon & Eric Mun& Jeon Gook-hwan et al, director Kim Jee-woon, him to her
Telecom companies are currently scrambling to implement fifth-generation cellular network technology, dubbed 5G. The Corbett Report, The 5G Dragnet, James Corbett online June 2019
The harmful effects of electromagnetic radiation present in current mobile technologies will be amplified by orders of magnitude in the much more powerful and denser extremely high frequency radiation network that 5G relies on. ibid.
Privacy and security would be next to impossible. ibid.
Why is there such a headlong rush to connect this network? ibid.
Good, then. Well then, as you say, we’re both coming through fine. Good. Well, it’s good that you’re fine, and – and I’m fine. I agree with you. It’s great to be fine. [laughs] Now then, Dmitri, you know how we’ve always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The BOMB, Dmitri. The hydrogen bomb. Well now, what happened is, uh, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of – well, he went a little funny in the head. You know. Just a little funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb 1963 starring Peter Sellers & George C Scott & Sterling Haydenn & Keenan Wynn & Slim Pickens & Peter Bull & James Earl Jones & Tracy Reed & Shane Rimmer et al, director Stanley Kubric, US president to Russian president
It’s a friendly call. Of course it’s a friendly call. Listen, if it wasn’t friendly, you probably wouldn’t have even got it. They will not reach their targets for at least another hour. I am, I am positive, Dmitri. Listen, I’ve been all over this with your Ambassador. It is not a trick. Well, I’ll tell you. We’d like to give your Air Staff a complete rundown on the targets, the flight plans, and the defensive systems of the planes. ibid.