Tart Cards
You know how London telephone boxes are sometimes full of postcards advertising the services of 'strict schoolteachers', 'young nurses' and 'sexy schoolgirls'? These postcards are, apparently, known as tart cards. Not to be confused with 'card tarts' which is the name given to those who keep taking out new credit cards, then when the low introductory interest rate offers expire, move to another card.
This might seem like a particularly politically incorrect term, but the phrase "tart carding", meaning the act of installing these cards in phone boxes, crops up in official reports from Westminster council and was in today's free London newspaper, Metro. As soon as I read it I thought... what a great name for a band!
Tart carding has been a criminal offence since 2001, but they still appear. The London Assembly is now trying to get all the phone companies to co-ordinate in getting the phone numbers advertised in these cards cut off.
I can remember when making these cards illegal was first discussed. Apparently the loudest protest came from a pensioners' group. The spokesperson said that stopping this advertising of prostitution would cause many of their pensioners to suffer great hardship. It turned out that this was not because all the prostitutes being advertised are OAPs, but because the OAPs had been earning pin money by going round putting the cards up.
I can see how some people would be offended by them, but I think these cards are nopw part of the London landscape. It would be a shame to see them go. It used to be a ritual for schoolchildren visiting the capital, especially from the Continent, to remove cards from the phone boxes and use them as postcards back home to their mates. It became a bit of a cult with European teenagers by all accounts.
I can remember one instance of seeing a coach full of Belgian school-trippers driving down Victoria Street several years ago. The kids had obviously been very busy denuding the capital of its tart cards, and they had even taken the time to make sure they got all the blue-tac as well. To pass the time they had put the cards and blue-tac to good use and had plastered all the windows in the back half of the coach with invitations to have a good time with busty Brazilians. As the coach turned the corner I could just make out the figure of a teacher frantically trying to take down all the cards. You could tell he was the teacher: he was the only passenger not giggling uncontrollably.
Anyway, Tart Cards would be, I feel, either a bit camp and arch or else just downright disreputable and as seedy as one of Lee Brilleux's grubby stage suits. They would have a huge wealth of material for album covers, as long as they hurry up and visit all the phone boxes before GLA cleans up the town.
Related links:
April 2005 - Backing Blair tart card competition
