Capital still split between people who say 0207 and people who are correct
LONDON – A bitter civil dispute that has divided the capital for twenty-five years flared again this week, after residents were reminded that the phone area code for London is, and has always been, a tidy little 020.
This came as a personal insult to the estimated nine million Londoners who insist the codes are 0207 and 0208, two tribes who have never knowingly agreed on anything, including this.
The number that started a war
“The London code is 020,” confirmed a spokesperson for the Institute of People Who Read The Whole Number, an organisation with no offices and no funding. “What follows is an eight-digit local number that happens to begin with a 7 or an 8. That is not part of the area code. That is just maths having a day off.”
The distinction is laid out plainly by the regulator on Ofcom’s public guidance, where the words “020” appear with the weary confidence of an institution that has explained this 4,000 times.
A code older than several relationships
The 020 code arrived in the year 2000 under a national renumbering scheme, replacing the beloved 0171 and 0181 codes that Londoners had only just learned to resent. Government archives on gov.uk describe the transition as “smooth,” a word that here means “accompanied by a quarter-century of confusion.”
“My grandmother still dials it as Whitehall 1212,” said a woman in Islington. “I have told her the war is over. She says all wars are area codes if you think about it. I do not have the energy to argue.”
Tourists attempting to call a London landline from abroad are advised to dial the international prefix, drop the leading zero, then add 20, a process described by major telecom providers as “simple” and by everyone else as “the reason I just send a WhatsApp.”
At press time, a man was still loudly insisting his number started with 0207, while his own phone displayed 020 directly above his head.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
The British don’t do anger, we do exasperation. The British don’t do despair, we do resigned acceptance. This nails both.
My mate’s a London councillor. Not showing him it because he’s got enough London stress without confirmation that people see through it completely.
A professor asked her class if they’d read it. All hands went up. The discussion that followed was the semester’s best.
My gran asked why I kept stopping to laugh. I said “England.” She nodded. Sufficient.