Playing with payphones: how the ubiquitous orange boxes have been gamified by fans

Quaint and often overlooked, phone booths continue to provide an essential public service with millions of free calls being placed each year

• Get our https://www.theguardian.com/email-newsletters?CMP=cvau_sfl">breaking news email, https://app.adjust.com/w4u7jx3">free app or https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/series/full-story?CMP=cvau_sfl">daily news podcast

A man I’ve never met stands at a payphone in Sydney’s CBD.

“A serene small park directly to the right of the payphone,” he says poetically into the receiver. “There’s a man with an interesting cap sitting down there, and an ibis.

I guess they’ll be immortalised in this phone voicemail forever.”