Landlines I know are used less and less these days but I found myself lifting the receiver to announce my exchange town name and the final three digits of our number. Our number became a six digit number back in the 1970s. Is this a sign of ageing or antiquated politeness?
It may have been an unconscious reaction to a persistent redialer trying to reach the Doctor's surgery who's number is a frequent misdial that reaches us.
Have they released the funds from your unexpected lottery win yet?
That takes me back to when we first got a phone, sometime in the early 70's. Hearing mum answer the phone in her best BBC newsreader accent in order to sound posh.
These days I can't even remember my landline number - that's probably more of a signs of ageing!
I bet the indian teleworker trying to scam you would love to hear your LL number. 😐
The only people who genuinely ring people's landlines these days are mums!
Answering your landline is a sign of ageing. How many PPI claims can a person make?
why even have a phone plugged into the landline, they're for routers surely?
Ring Ring
"Hello 1089" - childhood memories like the registration of my parent's cars UMS 30T
I was dismayed some years back when a shark* from a telecoms company sold my mum a new contract and she accepted a change in telephone number.
Yesterday due to foreign mobile network errors my landline was dug out an plugged in so MiL could phone home to Spain.
*May have been a perfectly nice person but I am not yet willing 20years later to let it go...
I remember when my phone number was 4 numbers long. Thirty eight thirty three.
Never saw the point of answering the phone with your number. If the caller intended to call you then they already know your number, if it's a wrong number then you've just given your number to a complete stranger.
The only people who genuinely ring people's landlines these days are mums!
Certainly that's the case with ours.
It certainly does make it stick in the memory... "71438. Whaddayawant?"
I used to call my mates on three digit numbers.
MY M-I-L answer phone message is with the exchange name and then the full number, so if you're easily confused you'd think you were through to 77 773955 (not the real number)
Top Tip: your old landline number from 30 years ago is still stuck in your head - so use it as your PIN or online banking passcode. Or even better use the old landline number of a mate or ex-girlfriend. They are all in there somewhere so you might as well put them to use 🙂
Some relatives used to state the name of the local exchange, then the 3-digit individual house number, when answering. Why? Because to them, it was a way of getting some sort of weird one-upmanship thing over other family members, who lived in large towns and cities, who couldn't do this. 'Oh look, we live in such a rural idyll, that our 'phone number is 'place xxx'. Aren't we wonderful?'
Remind me how [s]fast[/s] shit your broadband is, cos you're still on crappy copper wire to the cabinet, many miles from the local exchange? 😆
*Downloads some video, at 70Mbps, just, because*
[i]so use it as your PIN or online banking passcode.[/i]
Yes! I shall do that. 😛
On this subject, if you haven't listened to Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang Ups on R4, you should 🙂
Top Tip: your old landline number from 30 years ago is still stuck in your head - so use it as your PIN or online banking passcode. Or even better use the old landline number of a mate or ex-girlfriend. They are all in there somewhere so you might as well put them to use
I did that, phoned that friend up when I was back in town and it turned out that all those years I'd miss remembered it and it was actually a random stranger who's phone number was the first 3 digits of one friends and the last three of another. Even ore confusing, they had the same name so the conversation actually went on for a couple of minutes with us both getting more and more confused!
Allô !
In County Clare, Ireland in the 70s you still couldn't dial a number and had to ask the operator who then told you how much cash to put in. Unless it's changed recently you still don't need more than the last few digits for local calls.
Remind me how fast shit your broadband is, cos you're still on crappy copper wire to the cabinet, many miles from the local exchange?*Downloads some video, at 70Mbps, just, because*
Obviously not a Virgin Media customer 🙁
My MiL answers with the exchange name and 4 digit number.
Sometimes when she call my mobile I answer with [b][i]"Middleton Crematorium, you kill 'em we grill 'em"[/b][/i] and she hangs up.
Can anyone remember which old British coins worked in German phone boxes and made calls much cheaper?
somewhatslightlydazed - MemberHearing mum answer the phone in her best BBC newsreader accent in order to sound posh.
My mum still does this....she even does it if she's calling the Chinese Takeaway or speaking to a PPI person....
I quite like the number calling - it's quaint or something....might start doing it on my mobile....
Surely having a Land Line is a sign of age?
Been mobile only for 10+ years.....
I quite like the number calling - it's quaint or something....might start doing it on my mobile....
Me too.
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"Ello, T Mobile 1234"
I use a terse, somewhat irritated, "Yes?"
Binners answers the phone thusly:
"Ello? Rammy 3.1415927" 😀
Can anyone remember which old British coins worked in German phone boxes and made calls much cheaper?
I am not sure about German coins but some campsite arcade machines in France would accept 2p insted of 10 Francs. So the kids would tap up every British family on the site and have them rummaging around their cars, caravans and purses for 2p coins 🙂 Eventually we'd use every single one.
Is walking with one hand behind your back (think Prince Charles), also a sign of aging?
I've noticed I seem to do this a lot nowadays!
(the-muffin-man aged 48)
I'd struggle to recall when I last picked up the landline before the caller has announced who they are on the 24/7 answering machine, we've been plagued for years with cold callers despite being on the farcical TPS scheme.
my father does this, however since ohhh, I don't know, the mid 80's maybe, there's been an extra couple of digits added to his number when the exchanges all changed. He refuses, still, to say these numbers...
Upper Coscombe used to be 'Stanton 227' ......Now number tooo long!
After seeing it on Horrible Histories, we've started answering our land line, A-hoy-hoy!! Apparently Hello used to be a word associated with surprise.
I love horrible histories....
We had to share a line with the old lady across the road.
Yeah - when you used to answer the phone with a name and three digits, that was old fashioned.
My home number wasn't like this, but my Grandma's was - I guess it must have been mid-exchange changes. "Billesdon 527" - brings back memories.
A place in the Marlborough Sounds that I used to stay in had a party line, it rang all the phones in the bay and a specific ring tone meant it was for you but everybody could listen in !
My mother trained my sister and me to answer the phone "Hello 076", with the zero pronounced "oh".
We always sounded like we had a a stutter as we tried - in our best BBC voices - to enunciate clearly the end of "hello" and the start of "oh-seven-six"
Since the only people who use our landline now are our in-laws (my mother in law was very narked at me the other day announcing "I called you more than once!" And wasn't very impressed when I replied "there were no missed calls on my mobile, which I had with me as I wasn't in the house."), I am often surprised when the house phone rings.
I was trying to explain to my six year old daughter only the other day that it was within my lifetime that people have changed from calling buildings in the hope of speaking with someone, to calling that person directly, to dispensing with speaking and sending them short written messages. Just like personal telegrams....
Imagine my surprise the other day when, having the ignominy of having to visit a branch of Staples, I discovered that fax machines are still being made and sold..!
I was asked to send a fax yesterday and I failed to find a connected and working fax machine in my office !
Can anyone remember which old British coins worked in German phone boxes and made calls much cheaper?
Yes; the old 5p coin (pre 1990) was the size of a one DM coin. Ideal when it was 3+ DM to the £.
For unknown numbers, I favour either "moshi moshi " or "ahoy-hoy".
Ahoy hoy
Never saw the point of answering the phone with your number. If the caller intended to call you then they already know your number, if it's a wrong number then you've just given your number to a complete stranger.
Comes from the days of old telephone exchanges doesn't it? The days of exchange girls sat in front of plug boards or early electro-mechanical exchanges when wrong numbers or cross connections were far more common.
So you'd dialled Hendon 336, but got through to Hendon 633. When the person that picked the phone up at the other end rattled off their exchange and number, you instantly knew if you had the right connection.
I was amused when my 7 year old nephew was doing something on his tablet that required a pin. The number he came out with was my alarm code - the phone number i and my sister had as kids (the 4 digit version before they added another 2 numbers). I'm not sure what else she uses it but guess that he's picked it up from her at some point.
I was on holiday a few years ago, sharing a hotel room with my brother. I went to open the safe and he told me the code number - was the 1st 4 of our old phone number and it's exactly what I would have put in.
The number he came out with was my alarm code - the phone number i and my sister had as kids
The number to my tablet and phone is part of my wife's ex-boyfriend's old landline number from at least 25 years ago. 😆
(before she met me, I hasten to add)
"Answering your landline is a sign of ageing."
Silly boy.
Why have a mobile phone switched on when you have a land line? There are still plenty of us who fail to see the need to have a mobile communication device surgically attached to us. We can go a whole hour without checking to see if the world wants us. I do own a mobile. Why? God knows. I can't use it in the car, its wrong to use it in someone else's time, if I am late home so what? I reckon I actually make a call or send a SMS perhaps once a month and that's to keep the account going sometimes. Even the numbers are too long.
I genuinely cannot see the need for a mobile for most people.. Even those who say is essential forget that the world did run without them 🙄
