Telephone Numbers

People of a certain vintage will, to this very day, answer the telephone thusly:

Town, number (excluding STD) [1][2]

Of course they will say their town and their number. 

I'm unable to clarify this further by giving you an actual example without actually giving away someones number. And intanet rules, quite rightly, prohibit me from doing so. 

With power comes responsibility, my friends. 

I'm not sure why they do this but I imagine it goes back to the days when 95% of calls were routed incorrectly due to one of these implausibly attractive ladies at the exchange plugging the thing into the wrong thing.

One the rare occasions when I personally answer the phone I simply employ the salutation Hullo and make the assumption that the caller already knows the number they just dialled.

I mean they just dialled it.

[1] Subscriber Trunk Dialling

[2] Not, Sexually Transmitted Diseases!