The Weekly Round-Up: Are we only ever four feet from a rat with a mobile phone?

Plus a big happy birthday to red phone boxes and why geek trolley dashes just got a little closer...

Bored of your red phone box? Why not turn it into a tiny art gallery, like this one?Photo: BBC/YouTube

The Round-Up is old enough to remember when telephone boxes were used for making phone calls, rather than advertising unusual personal services and allowing the tramps to answer calls of nature.

When the Round-Up were a lad it cost just 10p to make a call from a phone box (although admittedly back then the 10 pence piece was a big as a dinner plate).

Some of the older inmates at Silicon Towers reckon they can remember when it cost two or three pence.

These days, if you find yourself in need of a callbox, you better be carrying plenty of change - it's now 60p to make a call.

60p!

Witnessing the waves of nostalgia this topic generated among some of the older members of the team, one of the younger recruits cruelly admitted they had never actually used a phone box, ever. And then managed to make everyone else feel even older by admitting she'd never used a dial phone, either.

Why is the Round-Up taking this little journey down memory lane? Because Britain's iconic red telephone box, aka the K6, celebrates its 75th birthday this year, that's why.

Introduced in 1936 to commemorate King George V's Silver Jubilee, more than 8,000 of the boxes were installed in 1936 and by the end of production in 1968 there were nearly 70,000 in Great Britain.

Top pub quiz fact: many areas did not approve of the red colour and so were allowed to paint them in alternative colours. To mark its anniversary BT has donated a K6 kiosk to London's Design Museum for their permanent collection and the box will feature in an exhibition which has just opened.

Recently BT has been selling decommissioned red phone boxes to local communities for a £1 (slightly less than the price of two phone calls) through its Adopt a Kiosk scheme with more than 1,500 kiosks have already been adopted. Boxes have been fitted with defibrillators, turned into art galleries, libraries and information centres. One village even turned theirs into a one-night-only pub. Now the Round-Up likes a cosy pub, but that sounds a little bit too cosy for comfort.

The geek trolley dash

The Round-Up hates shopping, especially grocery shopping. All those three-for-two offers to work out, grizzling kids and epic checkout queues. Not forgetting that the Round-Up always get the trolley with a death wish, which cheerfully rams itself into people, other trolleys and fragile towers of expensive bottles of wine. And of course, it's another hour or two spent away from the Round-Up's beloved gadgets.

But - could all of this be about to change? Has a supermarket come up with an idea that might just lead to a geek trolley dash? Or are they just off their trolleys?

Hi-tech trolleys being piloted at a west London Sainsbury's store, come complete with tilting iPad dock and speakers so customers can...

...shop while listening to music or catching up on their favourite shows through the BBC iPlayer app.

To prevent a pile-up on aisle number four, the trolleys have also been fitted with a front bumper equipped with sensors to alert engrossed shoppers of their proximity to other trolleys, shoppers and obstacles, which means you can browse the web while you are browsing the grocery aisle, without fear of crashing into the tower of Bogof baked beans.

On the downside, you do have to bring your own iPad in the first place. Still, now all they have to do is sort out the wonky trolleys and the Round-Up will be down the supermarket with a smile on its face.

Talking of gadgets, check out our gallery featuring the new Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.7 tablet, our pictures of the Sony Tablet S and Tablet P, and our photos of the best 25 iPad 2 cases.

Rat-tled by mobile phone research

It is often said that you are never more than six feet from a rat in London, which is one of the lovelier reasons to live in our great capital.

Well, a survey out this week claims that many of us are now never more than three feet from a mobile phone, either. Does this mean on average we are only ever four feet from a rat with a mobile phone? The Round-Up isn't sure you can run factoids together like that, but deeply wishes it to be true.

Anyway, according to the poll by MyVoucherCodes.co.uk, one in four people are never more than a metre away from their phone, which must make hobbies such as scuba diving a little hard on the hardware.

Two-thirds of people said they never turn their phone off, either, which shows what a switched on lot we are these days. Indeed, four out of ten of those surveyed said their mobile phone was their most important possession - compared to a mere one in twenty who said it was their laptop.

Someone who right now who is a lot further than one metre away from their phone is the unfortunate Apple worker who has apparently lost a prototype iPhone in a bar.

The test model of the unreleased iPhone was apparently lost in late July in a Mexican restaurant and bar in San Francisco, and so far hasn't been found.

As the bar owner told silicon.com sister publication CNET News.com: "I guess I have to make my drinks a little less strong."