London phone numbers

[SoupDragon]

I've just been processing ticket applications for a PTA event and am sooo annoyed with the number of people who say their phone number is 0208 654 blah blah blah. No it's not. It's 020 8654....

Petty and pedantic, yes, but it's simply incorrect to put it as 0208.

Bah!

I'm trying to remember the cities that used to have the three digit number (now 4 with the addition of the one).

Birmingham was 021, Edinburgh was 031, Glasgow was 041, Liverpool was 051 and Newcastle was 061.

Isn't Belfast 028 or 029 now?

Manchester was 061. Newcastle was 091. Who was in between since it seems to be alphabetical?

London, darling

Alphabetical apart from those.

Ha ha, of course. How could we forget??

And just to prove how wrong it is to put 0208, one of the forms today had an 020 3XXX XXXX number.

7 and 8 don't always tell you innner and outer though even when they were first set up. My friend lived in Bethnal Green which had a 8 prefix and I worked at Sky tv way out in Osterley and it was 7.

You need to join this facebook group which takes it a step further

"I judge you when you write or say London phone numbers incorrectly"

Love your name, msappropriate

(But DO NOT JUDGE ME! I DON'T CARE!)

judge judge judge

07 and 08 were reserved for the non-geographic numbers - and still are.

It can't all be alphabetical outside London if 0117 is Bristol, because Reading is 0118.

When we moved here (Wokingham) 15 years ago, it was 0734, then it changed to 01734, then 0118 with a 9 before the number. They've also changed the postcode from RG1X to RG4X, the county (Berkshire) has split into 6 'unitary authorities' and Wokingham Council has changed from Wokingham District to Wokingham Unitary, back to District and now to Borough.

Nobody here ever orders large quantities of headed notepaper.

The alphabetical ones are the old 0x1 numbers - now 01x1.

Soupy you are so right
I get furious about this too

read it and weep those of you who really think the code is 0208 or 0207!

My dh's work no is 020 3XXX XXXX and soon there will be more of these so really it makes no sense at all to say 0208

I always correct people if they say it

"1.1 ?020? became the Geographic Area Dialling Code for London in 1998 with the purpose of increasing the numbering capacity to meet demand"

so ner

poor dan. he might think his number is xxx xxxx but if he ever tried dialling it - it wouldn;t work. he needs to move with the times. have the grace to accept the things he cannot change , and accept that he's wrong

who is dan?

Dan is from WW's link further down the page. however he's the one who knows that his number is 7XXX XXXX, it's a poster called "old dog" who is refusing to acknowledge that his number is no longer XXX XXXX

Does Bayswater have a telephone code? What about Millbank?
look here
When I lived in London, I always greeted my callers by saying: 'Millbank 3579' (in a very 1940s voice obviously)

I seem to recall Bayswater was 262

You will be prod of me, I sent back some copy today woith a tel no 0207 xxx xxxx

I thought of this thread when I did it too (saddo)

The typesetter now thinks I am the worst sort of pedant

BAY = 229 (look at the keypad )

(It doesn't always work of course...eg for Millbank )

HappyCristmasWalrusIsOver, you did a bad thing.

It's very simple. If you are dialling an inner London number from another London number, including one in inner London, you have to dial 8 digits, the first being a 7. If you dial outer London, you dial an 8. Therefore the 7 and 8 are part of the phone number, not the London code which is 020, and redundant if dialling within London.

And yes the same goes for the other now not so new funny codes like 0115 SPACE 9blah blah, and equivalents in Leeds, Sheff, Bristol, and the still fangled three digit ones like 029.

Simple rule of thumb - if you have to dial a digit to connect to another phone number, even if it's in the same damn room, it's part of the number, not the area code.