Hanging up on Mercury
QUESTION What became of Mercury, whose space-age kiosks challenged BT’s monopoly on payphones?
FOLLOWING the privatisation of British Telecom in December 1984, Mercury Communications ltd, a subsidiary of Cable & wireless, introduced a rival network of public payphones.
with much fanfare, it launched its first 26 phone booths at london’s waterloo
Station on July 27, 1988. lord Young, Secretary of State for Trade and industry, unveiled the kiosks.
Mercury installed its state-of-the-art payphones at airports, railway stations and shopping centres.
There were three radical designs: a scroll-top, pedestal payphone described as the ‘totem concept’; the ogee pylon, which looked like a mini-conservatory; and a bizarre neo-classical phone box complete with Doric columns.
Coins weren’t accepted: you had to use a pre-paid Mercurycard or credit/debit cards. This was its downfall.
in dire need, the familiar sight of a phone box would be welcome until you read the fateful words: ‘Coins not accepted here.’
The under-used phone kiosks were scrapped in 1995. Two years later, the Mercury brand was amalgamated into Cable & wireless. However, Mercury has a lasting legacy. it operated the first gSM 1800 mobile phone service, launched in 1993 as Mercury one2one and rebranded as one2one from 1997.
its walkie-talkie style phones are collectors’ items.
one2one was sold to Deutsche Telekom in 1999 for £8.4 billion and renamed T-Mobile in 2002.
Jonathan Flower, Skipton, N. Yorks.
QUESTION Who coined the phrase ‘the Big Lie’ used in political discourse?
THE Big lie has most recently been used to describe Donald Trump’s allegation that the 2020 U.S. election was stolen due to massive electoral and voter fraud, and that he was the true winner.
The phrase was coined by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf in 1925: ‘The great masses of the people . . . will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.’
no one would believe that someone ‘could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously’.
it is a gross distortion or misrepresentation of the truth, used as a means of propaganda.
Hitler’s use of anti-Semitism in nazi propaganda, blaming Jewish people for all of germany’s problems, and his hijacking of Communist propaganda, blaming the ‘bourgeoisie’ for all workers’ problems, are infamous examples.
As a rule, the most effective Big lies are outrageous enough to be unbelievable yet appeal strongly to the prejudices of the listeners.
They are deliberately stated in as bland and matter-of-fact terms as possible and are constantly repeated.
A. D. Malcom, Truro, Cornwall.
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