The introduction of a modern version of the ‘Tardis’ police box.

Law You may have heard in the news this morning the Policy Exchange think tank is recommending...
"The introduction of a modern version of the ‘Tardis’ police box. These would be technologically-enabled police contact points, featuring two-way audio-visual technology so that members of the public could communicate directly with police staff. They could be used to report crime, provide witness statements, discuss concerns and access information."
Two things on this, maybe three:

(1) That the TARDIS has become so synonymous with the old public police call box that it has become it's shorthand description and in some news reports it's almost as though it has always been the official name.

(2) The assumption is that these wouldn't necessarily look like a TARDIS. Apart from anything else, the BBC now owns the trademark lock, stock and barrel on the TARDIS shape after the police finally got around to putting in a challenge in the last decade (note before the show returned to television) and lost. Here's adjudication which has actual line drawings of the TARDIS within its pages

(3) Except because it is such a recognisable shape, for all the mod cons, the police should be allowed to use the TARDIS design for such a venture and with the correct dimensions (though presumably the trad dimensions which are a bit smaller). Imagine how thrilling it would be to see these blue box at the ends of streets and in city centres again. Reassuring even, because some of us might imagine that there's a Time Lord nearby saving our lives.

(4) because let's face it, as Foyle's War demonstrated the other week, there is nothing more reassuring than seeing a blue box in the street:



What I love about this is they seem to have used what looks for all the world like an actual TARDIS prop or at least one of the commercial replicas. As anyone who's visited one of the still surviving boxes, like the one in Earls Court or Glasgow, will know the one from the series was a more stylised example especially in relation to the lamp on top.  Yes, apart from the reversed colours on the sign on the front.

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