Friday, June 06, 2008

Hugo 'Phonebox Spotter' Rifkind?

This week, the former diarist for the Times, Hugo Rifkind, crossed over to the darkside of feature writing, and this morning he has a piece in the Times 2 which is surely the result of a prank on the new boy?


The poor sod was sent around the country like a trainspotter to look at phoneboxes, and he scarily notes the different between the "K1 model, designed in 1921, and the K2 model, from 1924, [and] a K6, designed in 1935."

I wonder if next week he will be made to stand outside stations in London talking to those strange anorak wearing people that spot buses all day? Should his editor be reading this (unlikely) I dare you because he really does look even more nerdy than me in that picture!
Note to Hugo: Couldn't help taking the piss, sorry :-) Love the fact that you are in the women's lifestyle section too. Very metrosexual!

6 comments:

Croydonian said...

Technical note - the correct term for bus spotters / enthusiasts is 'omnibologists'. FACT.

Armchair Sceptic said...

This an important and historical article highlighting the decline of a British institution.



:-)

Anonymous said...

He needn't have left his desk, could have written it all from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_telephone_box

The K2 is the nicer one...

Anonymous said...

While you're taking the mick out of your new best friend Hugo, why don't you have a go at his shocking two-facedness on The News Quiz last Fri?

As it was radio (for which he has a good face) I couldn't tell whether he was blushing or smirking when he smugged wittily about the discl;osure of MPs second home allowances.

Amazing that the sainted Toksvig and the other panellists -- Jeremy Hardy, Carrie Quinlan and Mark Steel -- didn't ask him how nice his family's second home was when Daddy was MP for Edinburgh Pentlands between 1974 and 1997.

But nice to see that double standards are alive and well.

Bill Quango MP said...

Next Week Post Boxes
The Edward the VIII is the rarest one....

Anonymous said...

I read one article of this guy on Times online. It was about handball at Olympic games in Beijing. He was saying why handball is an Olympic sport. For his info, it is because is played by hundreds of milions of players in the world, is second most popular game for men and first for women. If he doesn't know what handball is then he is assuming none knows. Maybe in UK is not that popular, but in the world is huge. In 2007 the World Championship final was the 4th most watched event in the world, well ahead of cricket, Formula 1 and golf.
But how Hugo is looking his only sports activity in his life is running after the bus.