BTW Leadfingers - I think it was "Gave me a FRO(bisher", although the following line "Gave me a PRO(spect)" has a double meaning of course.

There used to be a technique of avoiding paying for calls (of course I never used it..) by tapping the number on the cradle of the phone. Because the 0, 1 and 9 were used for Operator and 999 calls, you could actually dial these (in fact 1-8 came out as 1). One of my friends had the number W00(lwich) 9011 and it was therefore possible to ring them for free as WOO came out as 900.