to think that almost 14 years after

[FuckThisShit]

the area code for London changed to 020, there seems to be a ridiculous number of total idiots people who still can't get it right?

The code is NOT 0207 or 0208 FFS, it is 020 followed by an 8 digit telephone number. For example, my number starts 020 3xxx xxxx, where the fuck is the 7 or 8 in that then? If I want to dial a number within London I will dial 7xxx xxxx, 3xxx xxxx or 8xxx xxxx. The 020 is irrelevant you inefficient twats

I have seen four, FOUR, brand new shops/restaurants this morning whose twattishness have ordered sign writers to do the 0207/0208 thing. Why? What's so fucking difficult.

AIBU to think they're all idiots?

AIBU to get the RAGE?*

• this one I know I am, but I will continue to do so I fear.

[limitedperiodonly]

I've used 'blud' before. And I like to call the police 'dem Babylon' just to see the looks of disgust and bewilderment on spotty young faces.

[TantrumsAndBalloons]

Butters-ugly.

[pigsDOfly]

I think they started changing in the 70's GetOrf. According to Wikipedia London numbers went all numbered in the mid 60's but I'm sure they were still being used in the early 70's. Not sure what Wikipedia is on about really.

[AnneEyhtMeyer]

01 811 8055 was Swap Shop & Saturday Superstore.

01 811 8181 was Going Live

[Bramshott]

Ooh, a whole telephone numbers thread!!

We have a five digit number (rural exchange) and I spend my whole life saying to people "it's a short number" but secretly I'm rather proud!

Does anyone else remember local dialling codes? So to dial the next-door exchange you'd not us the four-digit 0234 number, but a two digit random one like 96??

[limitedperiodonly]

Everyone at school used to watch Swap Shop so we all saw when a boy in my class got through.

The odds against it must have been huge but his dad was very rich and they had a phone with redial. We'd only just got a phone . We weren't poor but there was quite a startling divide at my school.

Anyway, come Monday when he was trying to boast, every single one of us claimed to have been helping our mums with the tidying up

[LapsedPacifist]

Those of us who lived in London before 1990, when the London code was still just '01' still think of the following 3 digits as the ones which identify which area of London you are ringing. ie, '349' or '346' for Finchley, '203' for Hendon, etc. Hence we still remember phone numbers as '0208' (Outer London) '349' (Finchley) '9999' (Hairdresser).

Does that make sense?

[Lovecat]

There is a hairdressers near where I live with the most fabulous 50's signage on it saying

Victor Hair Artist Val 3333

(a park called Valentines Park is nearby so I assume it takes the code from that)

It always cheers me up when I see it.

In fact I just googled it and here it is :)

[limitedperiodonly]

I befriended a one-eared squirrel in Valentines Park lovecat. If it's the same one, that is. Ilford.

Actually, I bet the verminous little rodent was just using me for bread. We didn't have peanuts in them days.

[pigsDOfly]

I'm so old, the first telephone we had when I was a child didn't even had a dial on it. You just picked up the receiver and the operator would come on the line and say 'number please'?

We also had some weird system with a 'shared line' which meant you shared your line with another person in the street (made the rental cheaper), but if they were on the phone when you picked up your receiver you could listen to their conversation and vise versa obviously.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

That's fantastic lovecat

I also know someone on a rural exchange who had a 5 digit telephone number until very recently. They were FURIOUS when it changed to 6 digits.

[GetOrfMoiLand]

How old are you pigs?

[limitedperiodonly]

Right, let's get her, pigs. We might be slow but that lulls them into false sense of security.

[DolomitesDonkey]

Oh it's like that bit where Carrie Bradshaw is mean to Jennifer Hudson because she can't get her a manhattan number.

[limitedperiodonly]

The only phone without a dial I remember was in the original Manhunter when the jailed Hannibal Lecter used it with a bit of silver paper and his superior intellect to outwit the FBI.

You may have been a foetus when it was made in 1986 GetOrf. I have just two things to say to you. Fava beans and a nice chianti. Ffffff-mmm.

[limitedperiodonly]

Used to collect silver paper for blind dogs. It wasn't really silver, was it?

[complexnumber]

"I get sooooooooooooooooo mad when even now, shops put (01132) xxxxxx on their signs/leaflets etc. Just try ringing the 6 digits from another leeds landline and see if you get connected YOU WON'T"

I'm sorry, but I just have an image of an MNer in Leeds, spotting a 01132 number on a shop, and then ringing it... then exploding with rage because it did not connect!

Then walking on until the next shop with a 01132 number and repeating the process, exploding with rage yet again! etc etc.

[tallulah]

TheWave
I am almost 50. The UK of my youth was very much using imperial. My dad filled up the car in gallons. My mum taught me to cook with ounces and to sew in inches.

School taught us in metric to prepare us for the future and stupidly someone decided not to bother teaching imperial. All that led to for a lot of us was the idea that metric was for maths and imperial was for normal life.

[limitedperiodonly]

bramshott my MIL still quotes Seaside Town+four digit number proudly.

[limitedperiodonly]

I remember us going decimal in 1971 but I still ask for a pound of potatoes.

We are the lost generation

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I LOVE the original Manhunter. Thingy Cox was a better Hannibal Lecter. And that lovely looking bloke who ended up in CSI was great.

I also love the Leeds telephone number rages

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I can't think in metric despite born in 1978 (ha!) and only ever being taught in kilos and kilometres.

I think in miles and pounds and ounces. If someone tells me their weight in kilograms I haven't got a clue what they are on about. That said, I can only think in Celsius, older people who go 'ooh it was in the 70s today' confuse me.

[limitedperiodonly]

In 1978 I was dithering over whether calling them Jam concerts marked me out as being hopelessly outer London.

Yes, I was.

[Flosshilde]

My BIL says Town [number] when he answers the phone. He is 38. This is however just one of many ways in which his behaviour is more akin to someone in their 80s.