Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

silvercar

zagubov wrote: »

When different phone companies got into the market they wanted to promote the idea of having an extension in the kitchen, as in the US people spent a long time on the phone but in the UK people didn't want to stand around in the hall (which isn't even a room and won't have chairs) so we kept calls clipped and short.

The fact that in the US you weren't charged for length of call didn't seem to suggest another reason why we kept our calls shorter than theirs.

As regards answering the call, yes my parent gave the town and phone number. It think it was Ballachuilish 3.;)

BT used to have adverts telling you "it was good to talk", that was in the days when calls were charged per minute, when national calls were charged at more than local and when calls during the day were at a peak rate. Then along came all inclusive call packages and suddenly it is no longer good to talk as the less people talk, the less lines (between exchanges) that the operators need to provide.

Years ago, you would occasionally get the message that lines were busy, doesn't seem to happen any more.

zagubov

PasturesNew wrote: »

Vibes going your way ... you do realise that the NP vibes ALWAYS work don't you. You'll get the admiration of your upline AND get offered the new job!

Yes, that's true, so you better want these jobs. While the vibes are effective, they're not reversible.:beer:

zagubov

silvercar wrote: »

BT used to have adverts telling you "it was good to talk", that was in the days when calls were charged per minute, when national calls were charged at more than local and when calls during the day were at a peak rate. Then along came all inclusive call packages and suddenly it is no longer good to talk as the less people talk, the less lines (between exchanges) that the operators need to provide.

Years ago, you would occasionally get the message that lines were busy, doesn't seem to happen any more.

This is making me nostalgic for that lateral thinking stuff we did back in thread 5 four years ago.

Generali

We had a phone from when I can remember but when we moved from London to the sticks we had a party line so you had to listen in first to make sure that nobody else was on the phone.

Our phone number was just 4 digits long at first (mid-70s) and I think only went to 6 digits in the mid-80s. I had a GF in the mid-80s who had a 3 digit phone number.

We had to get rid of the party line when Ol' Pa Generali started working from home. He used to bring home a terminal that would let him operate the mainframe in some way. It had a cradle on top of it where you plugged in the phone handset and then you dialed the phone number of the computer you needed to talk to.

Our number was only 1 different from the local cottage hospital (i.e. if we were abcd, the hospital was aabc). At least once we got a call in the middle of the night from a confused old lady, convinced she was having a heart attack. As she wouldn't hang up, Dad cycled in his PJs in the rain to the phone box in the next road along.

Another glorious day in paradise. It's sunny and about 20C, getting up to 23C at lunchtime apparently.

I got to the ferry this morning and they'd closed up a couple of streets that people use for parking. As Aussies are extremely reluctant to walk more than a few feet if they can avoid it, it was absolute chaos. One woman I swear had parked in about 10 people by blocking the top of a dead end street! I drove about 40 seconds down the road and found a park easily then just walked back up.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

Next weekend, if there's one near you.
None in my county.

http://www.nationalmillsweekend.co.uk/

Double check if you find one as they're not all open as part of the weekend.

Oh, you have to check windmills and watermills.

Just clicked watermills and there are a few here. One I was in yesterday when I was out - that took all of 2 minutes as it's 10'x20'

I miss living in a place that has old stuff.

Generali

PasturesNew wrote: »

I should say, as I'm special needs ... I don't like starting threads (I feel an overwhelming dark cloud of 'responsibility' to them).... so if anybody's really into windmills, feel free to start a thread informing others on other boards here ... because I won't be

I hate the bit where everybody starts to squabble over what they said somebody else said .... and they didn't, then they drag up old posts by that person, then there's an argument over nothing that ever happened ... and then it just gets bad.

Done.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/70641862#Comment_70641862

With recognition.

zagubov

It was years before I realised that the old dialling codes were alphabetical
ie Birmingham (021) Edinburgh (031) Glasgow (041) Liverpool (051) Manchester (061) and similarly for smaller towns too.

Generali

zagubov wrote: »

It was years before I realised that the old dialling codes were alphabetical
ie Birmingham (021) Edinburgh (031) Glasgow (041) Liverpool (051) Manchester (061) and similarly for smaller towns too.

It's about 3 seconds since I realised that!!!

Apparently the US lobbied really hard to get the international dialing code '1'.

My bloody Bloomberg terminal keeps crashing and I'm meeting someone for coffee in 15 minutes. Grrrrr.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

It's about 3 seconds since I realised that!!!

Apparently the US lobbied really hard to get the international dialing code '1'.

And they shared it with their northern neighbour Canada.


My bloody Bloomberg terminal keeps crashing and I'm meeting someone for coffee in 15 minutes. Grrrrr.

I believe that the Soviet Union and now Russia got 007.:beer:

Doozergirl

I always remember a phone. We were up to nine digits by that point. London was 01.

Our number was one digit different to the B&Q in West Norwood. We'd get a lot of misdials on the old dial telephones, but it eventually stopped as it's not as misdial that would happen on a touchpad, because of the layout.

B&Q still have the same number. A long time later!