It's Not a Police Box, It's a Tardis

xA40D writes "The BBC is reporting that they've won the battle with the Metropolitan Police over the trademark police box, more commonly known as a Tardis: 'arbitrator Shaun Sherlock remarked that even if the police had built up any reputation, it would have only been in the area of policing and law enforcement and would not have extended into the goods and services which the BBC had applied to use it for.'"

Comments

Of course, you know that's TARDIS

[penginkun]

All caps, right? Time And Relative Dimensions in Space, yeah? OK. As you were.

Re:Of course, you know that's TARDIS

[Alan Partridge]

Acronyms that you can pronounce?? Acronyms ARE INITIALISMS that you CAN pronounce as if they were real words. I f you can't say it like a word, it's NOT an acronym.

Re:Of course, you know that's TARDIS

[1u3hr]

Oxford English Dictionary:
acronym A word formed from the initial letters or parts of other words; loosely an abbreviation composed of initial letters.

initialism A group of initial letters used as an abbreviation, esp. one in which each letter is pronounced separately.

So, "loosely", an initialism is an acronym. (Not that I'd ever heard of an initialism before today.) But if one makes the distinction, I don't think that an acronym is an initialism either. Better to say both are abbreviations.

But anyway, "Tardis" is strictly an acronym, so it should be written thusly. Unfortunately, the BBC chooses otherwise.

Etymology of Tardis

[jukal]

tar -c myself && dis locate work->home.

What's the point?

[shplorb]

They're both government departments - can't they be happy that it belongs to the government no matter what? Ahh the wonders of bureaucracy!

Damn bitches! err... lawyers.

Re:What's the point?

[vidarh]

They're NOT both government departments. The BBC is a Corporation under Royal Charter. It may seem like a subtle difference, but it means that the BBC for the most part is run like any other company with the exception that it's board is appointed by the Crown, and it's main form of revenue is the license fee.

Particularly under the Royal Charter BBC has an agreement that guarantee them editorial independence, which means that if they use the Tardis in a way that the Metropolitan Police doesn't like they don't have any recourse through government channels - they can choose to try to negotitate with the BBC, or they can sue. Presumably it's a situation like that the Met doesn't like.

Re:Sheesh...

[foo12]

Or win back the mark and allow its licensing to third parties, effectively capitalizing on the popularity won for the police box by the Dr. Who series.

A similar suit was recently settled in favor of the London Underground. Perhaps those more familiar with international resolution of civil torts can comment.

Re:K-9 or K-O

[g4dget]

I'm not a Doctor Who expert, but I just saw the Key to Time series on DVD. In it, K9 does get the Doctor out of a lot of tight spots. Also, the Tardis is locked and can only be opened by the Doctor. And, the Doctor really seems to like K9 and does pet it quite a bit. And, yes, that tail does wag.

Re:K-9 or K-O

[Atrahasis]

Actually, the the TARDIS has an infinite number of keyholes inside the one (apparent) keyhole on the outside. Only The Doctor knows which is the right one, and only he has a key.

Re:Dr Who movies? Big charges.

[Atrahasis]

Perhaps this will allow a reincarnation of the earlier Dr. Who TV series in a new form, or perhaps even a new movie. I remember watching these when I was young, very cool stuff despite its age

I read somewhere recently that there will be a new series of Dr Who sometime next year - the Doctor has not yet been announced (probably not Paul McGann, so the Beeb wasted the entire 8th Doctor on a film).

Re:Heh

[stygar]

Regarding the Metropolitan Police's desire to have a trademark on something: they might've just been following the lead of the RCMP here in Canada. The mounties have trademarks on their traditional image (ie the red-coated, wide-brimmed hat wearing cop on a horse), ostensibly so that they have control over how the image is used, and on what products. The only really objectionable thing they've done with the trademark is sign a contract with Disney (shudder) to act as their agent for those licensing the image (IIRC, this contract has run out and not been renewed).

Mind you, the RCMP is probably in a unique position on this - I doubt there are many other police forces with as distinctive an image, in any country.

What did a "police box" do ?

[gibodean]

It seems I'm the only person here to actually not know what the original purpose of the police box was.

I mean, before 1960 when they were taken out of service, what were they used for ?

Did they have a telephone inside which connected you to the police ?

Or was it somewhere to hide when you were being chased by hooligans ?

Re:What did a "police box" do ?

[Foniks]

They were used as a temporary holding cell for aprehended criminals and were made from anything from wood to cement. The front panel did house a phone that could be used by the public or the police to call for help/backup. In fact the original TARDIS was going to be an abandoned police box found in the country - but when the props guys rocked up it had been lifted, so they had to make a new one. Which lasted from 1963 till 1975ish when it fell apart on Tom Baker and Elizabeth Sladens head.

Re:What did a "police box" do ?

[DunbarTheInept]

They had a dual purpose:

1. In a time when the telephone had been invented but had not become ubiquitous, and mobile radio units were extremely bulky, the telephone on the outside of the box was the beat cop's means of contacting the station. If he needed some help, or needed to report something, he could run to the nearest police box and use the phone there.
2. The box could be opened and a suspect could be locked inside for a short while. Thus the officer could hold the person there, then make the phone call (using the phone on the box) to have more people come down from the station to escort the detainee back.

This became obsolete when the constables started using automobiles in addition to walking cops. First, the automobile could carry a radio and the battery to power it, which made the police box telephone obsolete. Second, the automobile was used to transport the suspect back to the station directly, which made the second use of the police box obsolete.

By the time of the show, they were already obsolete and only a few were left. Thus the first Doctor and his granddaughter (or was it niece? I can't remember), kept the TARDIS in a back alley piled with random junk (where an old unused Police Box would look normal.

History of the British Police Box

[fantomas]

This looks like a good introduction to the history of the British Police Box...

"The TARDIS style boxes were the most expensive and the cost for building a box in 1931 was 55pounds 16 shillings and 7pence, with another 3 pounds for number plate, coat hook, lino , stool, a fire extinguisher and bracket, as well as a brush and duster to keep the mini police station tidy!"

Happy reading. Me, I'm 36 and grew up in England. Never saw a 'real' police box til I was a teenager. Vaguely knew that Dr. Who was travelling round in something that old-fashioned policemen used to use when my dad was a boy (or the Age of the Dinosaurs or similar) but never saw one until I was wandering round London as a teenager and found a few grubby disused and flyposted ones. Luckily these days councils have cottoned on to the fact that they are actually design classics, charming and tourists love them (as well as us who grew up as kids watching the Doctor take on tin foil and vacuum cleaner-part aliens), and they've been restoring a few rather than flattening them all.

To purchase a Police Box

[Foniks]

Incidently, "This Planet Earth" used to make a full size replica TARDIS that you could purchase online. It came in a wood version and later a fibreglass version - but it has since been discontinued (only recently too). But you can still buy replica Daleks, Cybermen, K9's etc. Very high quality, i.e. as good if not better than the TV originals. In fact the Daleks have been used for Doctor Who promo gigs I believe. Check them out at http://www.thisplanetearth.co.uk It looks like they are thinking of releasing the 1996 movie version of the TARDIS soon..

Pedant mode on

[Burb]

Current usage in the BBC Dr Who Site and novels is all caps ...

Re:If the BBC had lost...

[scharkalvin]

The car that Pertwee and Baker drove had "who"
on the license plate. Later they just used "?"

Re:Heh

[billcopc]

Hey we get the same kind of police fraud here in Canada. I once got pulled over for speeding, which in itself is okay except for the fact that the guy was out of his district (I traveled four close cities to/from work, and he was about a mile beyond the borders - bah). Anyways I fought the ticket in court and got shut out by the judge who had an obvious grudge against 21-year olds who earn more money than he does, so I pay the fine and go on with my life, slightly irate.

3 months later I get arrested for driving without a license because they decided to charge late fees on my fine but never bothered informing me, so a sneaky (fraudulent?) 40$ late fee ended up costing 300$ (the fine for an invalid license) and another 600$ in hiked insurance premiums because of the big ugly mark on my record for having my license suspended.

I have recently moved to the sneaky police's district, and I see them everyday, camping out the same traffic trap, arresting at least a hundred drivers at that intersection PER DAY for the same 130$ ticket and 2 points on the license, for changing lanes during rush hour in 2 kph traffic, something that has never killed anyone here, and certainly doesn't deserve the attention of FOUR cars and 6-7 police agents, leaving two cars to cover the remaining 1400 square kilometers of the region (an aggregate of small country towns, perhaps 25000 habitants).

I swear every time I drive by that intersection, I get this urge to just ram them all into a sheet-metal sandwich. Police (and the rest of government) are supposed to be non-profit. We pay taxes for this shit, and we get raped in return. Police state, meet Anarchy village!

Re:Dr Who movies? Big charges.

[Atrahasis]

Done some digging around, and it would appear the series is scheduled for November 2003.

Timomthy Spall (Auf Wiedersein Pet, All or Nothing) was rumoured to be cast as the 9th doctor, but that has been quashed by the BBC.

Re:The BBC is so cheep.

[a1englishman]

That would've been great if Star Trek hadn't started in 1966, and Doctor Who in 1963. Hmmmm?