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 have recnetly aquired a new mobile and number. and the only format that i can remember the number is in XdoubleY,ZdoubleY XXXXX. it has always been a bugbear when people go changing the format of their mobie numbers willy nilly, and now im doing it. because, damnit, my new number works better that way.
sorry.
(i sit on the fence re 0207/020_7... . sometimes i say the first, sometimes the latter. im fickle, me.)

which you may prefer to adhere to or not, depending on your opinion of rules and conformity. or something.

have only read the first and last pages so might be repeating - I work in Wokingham and the number there is 0118 979 XXXX. NOT 01189 79XXXX, because you need the 9 at the beginning of the number if you are dialling from within the area of Reading (0118). But you try and get half the people I speak to to believe it!! It probably used to be 0789 before the numbers all went 10 digit, so no wonder people get confused.The problem is entirely down to BT and their illicit partnership with headed stationery companies [conspiracy theory]- if they hadn't felt the need to keep changing the sodding area codes none of this would matter.

And for the record, I have to do my mobile number in a 5-3-3 format as well.

oh, ok. well obv the code is technically 020. and obv most people actually know that, but i can see why the lack of uniformity has arisen (being a Londoner born and bred myself, and having lived through the whole 01, 071, 0171, 020/7 saga)

and i sit on the fence in as far as i dont give a shit how it gets written

it'll probably really bug me from now on, bloody subliminal thread influence