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Language: en

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In any Hollywood movie, if someone has to dial a phone number, it will start 555

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and there's a reason for that, not only is it American tradition, but the 5550 block is blocked out

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across America, for dramatic numbers, so all numbers that start 5550 with a couple of rare exceptions,

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will never get through.

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Now, there have been a couple movies that have tried to use other numbers because hearing 555

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does take you out of the action a little, and Bruce Almighty managed to spark a whole load of people

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trying to call God when his number was flashed up on screen.

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Now of course that's slightly worse in America because the caller doesn't just pay for the phone call to a cellphone, the person with the cellphone pays as well.

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So, suddenly, someone was getting 20 or 30 calls an hour and all they were asking for was God.

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What you might not know though is that Britain also has numbers like that

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in one of the few good decisions that Ofcom, the regulator has ever made about phone numbers,

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there are a few blocks marked out. In London, it's 0207946, there's several blocks in cities across Britain,

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and for rural areas, an entire area code, 01632 that is guaranteed never to connect.

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There's a mobile phone number too, 077009, that whole block will never, ever get through to anything.

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And at the exchange level, well, it just cuts you off straight away. If you're on a cellphone, you'll never get through.

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And if you're on one of these, an old-fashioned land line, you won't even get halfway through dialling it before

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you get cu- [PHONE CUT OFF SOUND EFFECT]