please empty your brain below
I read this on a bus passing the War Memorial and telephone exchange. It's Vivian Avenue not Vivian Way.

Anon | 04.01.18 - 7:25 a.m. | #

I do like stumbling across an Eddie the 8th pillar box.

martin | 04.01.18 - 7:32 a.m. | #

I wonder why some war memorials do not include WWII - was it simply that no one was killed locally, or were the names put up elsewhere - local church, school etc.

Still Anon | 04.01.18 - 7:50 a.m. | #

I think you should do this instead, and bring us not very detailed information about all four items :)

Kirk | 04.01.18 - 8:17 a.m. | #

A tour of Hendon it is then.

EonLeader | 04.01.18 - 8:19 a.m. | #

What counts as a "London Postcode" for your proposed project? Would you only visit postcodes in the LONDON post town, or would you Greater London postcodes in surrounding areas as well? (For example, the TW area straddles the border between Greater London and the home counties). What about postcodes that have been subdivided into smaller postcodes? The ECs, the WCs, W1 and SW1 have all been broken into letter-suffixed districts, while N1C and E1W broke off from N1 and E1 respectively to cover King's Cross and Wapping respectively.

TheLupineOne | 04.01.18 - 8:22 a.m. | #

I miss 2004 DG who used to tell us what his favourite five songs were and what you thought of last nights Big Brother ... 😟

Geofftech | 04.01.18 - 8:24 a.m. | #

I wanted to opt for "War Memorial" (yeah, because of that centenary thing) but I soon found out that it would cost you the highest number of blogs, which is not good (as it deprives you of valuable personal time). Constituencies would yield the fewest number of blogs but it kind of overlaps with your 2017 quest. A hard choice really.

Patrickov | 04.01.18 - 8:41 a.m. | #

891 posts then:

“And the award For the most boring blog of 2018, 2019 and most of 2020 goes to...”

Richard | 04.01.18 - 8:43 a.m. | #

I like the first one best and don’t think telephone exchanges have featured in other blogs in this way. There is another blog that covers post codes - walking one at a time. In reality you would probably capture the essence of the random place/district no matter which one you choose. But to me, at least, there is something quite fascinating about the origin of the telephone exchange codes.

Victoria | 04.01.18 - 8:48 a.m. | #

Telephone exchanges a vote from me too. It would be nice to see which ones are still in use and what has become of redundant ones.
It would fit in nicely in one year as you could cover more than one exchange on a visit as some were not far apart. Example POP and TWI were both Twickenham exchanges, POP being central Twickenham, and TWI Twickenham Green. I think the old POP exchange building is still used by BT.

John | 04.01.18 - 8:56 a.m. | #

I too like the idea of a series of articles about the old telephone exchanges of London.
The world of telephone communication has changed beyond all recognition that it's past is now invisible.

My old number was SWK 2159 pre 1960's.

YDU | 04.01.18 - 9:18 a.m. | #

I vote phone exchanges. Our first was RIVerside. Next to that was PROspect. Never did find out why it was called that.

ap | 04.01.18 - 9:19 a.m. | #

My choice would be Telephone Exchanges, my home one being PUTney, or 788. When that ran out of numbers and they went digital they added 789.
On doing a search for Gunner Arthur Henry Walton I stumbled on the site firstworldwaronthisday where there are some stunning statistics.

strawbrick | 04.01.18 - 9:19 a.m. | #

I vote none of these I think this is a solution looking for a problem!

Sir Biton | 04.01.18 - 9:26 a.m. | #

I recall being told Ilford was IG because the postcode area included Barking, so they used the first letter of Ilford and the last of Barking.
I look forward to reading any of these ideas, the telephone exchanges sounds great.

Lorraine | 04.01.18 - 9:29 a.m. | #

From memory Croydon and Norwich were the pioneers of UK postcodes, which in those days started with three letters (mine was NOR 42X). Croydon's began CRO, and to this day, I think a zero as a gesture to the final letter in the first part of the postcode is unique to the Croydon CR0 area.

Tim W | 04.01.18 - 9:34 a.m. | #

I would be intrigued to discover more about why my local exchange (when, as a child, my parents got their first phone) in Sudbury Town was called DIL (Diligence) - even though about a week after it was replaced with a sticker giving the number as '903'

The Legendary Zelda | 04.01.18 - 9:38 a.m. | #

@Tim W -- there's also SL0 in Slough

AlanBG | 04.01.18 - 9:46 a.m. | #

If you are stuck for blogging ideas DG could you do something about London accents? You seem to have a keen ear for them (at least when you hear them on the bus). Perhaps it would be interesting to track whether there noticeable 'regional' accents in London today?

R.O. Beethoven | 04.01.18 - 9:56 a.m. | #

I vote for Telephone Exchanges (closely followed by Post Codes).

When growing up in Croydon, our phone number was in LIV (LIVingstone), but I have no idea why it was so called. When everything changed to numbers, it became 653.

Happy New Year to you and all your readers.

John Simmons | 04.01.18 - 9:56 a.m. | #

Telephone exchanges please. There are a lot of retired telephone engineers who will help out with the history, via the comments box.

coffin dodger | 04.01.18 - 10:17 a.m. | #

How about the last telephone exchanges to go from manual (operator connecting only) to automatic. It's later than you think. there were still manual only telephone exchanges in the late 60s amazingly.

Rick | 04.01.18 - 10:40 a.m. | #

4 excellent ideas.

1918 constituencies would be very apt but telephone exchanges would be very interesting and quite a challenge.

Plus the idea of DG rooting around inside and reporting back on the state of random phone boxes is surely too good to miss out on.

Kevin | 04.01.18 - 10:44 a.m. | #

"I'll be visiting all 242 London postcodes"

Fair play to you, an incredible effort. This blog OWNS you, not the other way around.

Mark | 04.01.18 - 10:52 a.m. | #

DG: It sounds to me as if your heart isn’t in any of the four possibilities. If that’s the case, I suggest you ignore all four and do whatever you fancy. If, however, you’re committed to doing one of the four, I think the telephone exchanges have the most potential.

M | 04.01.18 - 10:55 a.m. | #

Just me then who thought DG was being ironic

Mark | 04.01.18 - 10:57 a.m. | #

Mark - no, I wondered too!

Of most interest to me from these four is telephone exchanges... but I'm still giving my vote to exploring the old utility buildings that remain around London (eg electricity and water works) - although these could follow on from telephone exchanges, non?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 04.01.18 - 11:07 a.m. | #

The constituencies are the easiest, at merely 88, rather than over 200. Phone exchanges or war memorials (both excellent ideas) would be more than 5 a week.

Perhaps you could do one post a week with 5 or 6 exchanges or memorials and a short bit on each, rather than the normal longer post. Of course, that would mean that you had to come up with other material for the other days - maybe two posts per week on that (with 2 or 3 items ticked off)?

Si | 04.01.18 - 11:09 a.m. | #

I hope you're not planning on doing all four because you could end up getting one in each of the far-flung corners!

My vote is also for telephone exchanges. I often spot them out and about - they're so distinctive, but have no idea what they're being used for now!
My Gt grandfather was born in the one in Gerard St, Soho - though it was before telephones and Chinese restaurants had been invented!

Cornish Cockney | 04.01.18 - 11:17 a.m. | #

As alphabetic telephone numbers seem to be raising a lot of interest, could I just mention that to map the letters to the numbers, you are not obliged to look at an old fashioned bakelite dial phone. The same mapping is still in use (for dinosaurs like me without smartphones) on the keypads of mobile phones.

Malcolm | 04.01.18 - 11:26 a.m. | #

DG: Telephone Exchanges please! The Legendary Zelda @9.38am had DILigence as a child, and we had VIGilant in those times. That was in Sutton and Cheam.

REB | 04.01.18 - 11:28 a.m. | #

It has to be a windup. Over 200 in a year is too many. How will there be space or time to cover pr blunders, bus stop m or big brother

Tim m | 04.01.18 - 12:02 p.m. | #

@Rick, the last manual exchange in England was Abingdon in 1975

Nick | 04.01.18 - 12:14 p.m. | #

Sole request for 1918 constituencies. Please.

south london lad | 04.01.18 - 12:43 p.m. | #

Whatever you do it will be far more interesting than most people could make out of any of those choices!

Mitch | Homepage | 04.01.18 - 12:57 p.m. | #

If you go for the telephone exchange, it gives you 6 days each month to blog about something else. Sounds exciting :)

Greg S | 04.01.18 - 1:05 p.m. | #

Our first 'phone at our family home was a BER(mondsey) number. My dad's office,though,had HOP (the nearby hop exchange). I found these fascinating as a child,trying to figure out where in London the letters pertained to.
My biggest laugh came from finding out in a telephone box listing that there was a MOG,for Mogador, a place that was only known to me as a description of someone who was a bit 'round the bend'- proper mogadorred!
I look forward to seeing if you find any others like this. 😅😅

Jo W | 04.01.18 - 1:14 p.m. | #

On the subject of telephone exchange names, in pre 'all number' days it was highly unusual to just use the three letter code - in normal speech the name would be said, in writing it frequently with the first three letters (i.e. the code) capitalised, e.g. a number would be given as SUNnyhill 1234. When the system - with subscriber dialing - came in, after the obvious geographic codes had all been used (e.g. HARrow) the GPO had to resort to names of only local significance (such as the SUNnyhill quoted), or totally random but memorable names, such as WORdsworth, to suit the codes. And I think towards the end, it became a struggle to come up with names for the remaining unused codes.

The mapping system (letters to numbers) is not quite the same as on mobile phones - in particular letters O and Q mapped to numeric 0 - see http://rhaworth.net/phreak/tenp_uk.php#ukdial . This catered for the British habit of saying 'O' (Oh) for the digit 0, in saying numbers.

And as a comment the topic - however interesting it might be (and DG I'm sure can provide an interesting post on them all) - at nearly 300 it will take several years to get through, and so, like postal districts and war memorials, not a theme for this (or any) year.

Jeremy | 04.01.18 - 1:29 p.m. | #

Yay ! Thought my idea about London's Lost Telephone Exchanges was in high dudgeon, but perhaps I've been reprieved...

Like DG's choice of LAGoon because it's really lost: it was almost immediately erased by All Figure Numbers (it's now 8390) which is why it seldom appears in dialling code lists. It was named after Surbiton Lagoon, an iconic open air swimming pool sadly now demolished. Surbiton could not be used as a name for its first exchange because it would have clashed with STReatham, so it was called ELMbridge.

@ DG: SUNnyhill is now 8203, not 786. Curiously, the equivalent digits 8786 have been allocated to exchanges in and around Surbiton.
@ strawbrick: Putney's second exchange (8789) was GIBbon, named after the historian and MP Edward Gibbon who was born there.
@ Lorraine: Postcodes didn't exist then: ILFord (8478) was a named exchange, but from London the code for the non-London Ingrebourne exchange was IG.
@ REB: VIGilant exchange was named after a stagecoach that stopped there on its route between London and Brighton.

Gerry | 04.01.18 - 1:32 p.m. | #

Why the emphasis on yearly projects - remember Random Boroughs stretched over eight years between 2004 and 2012.

I think one of the longer projects would be better but just space them out over a few years rather than aiming to complete them in a specific timeframe.

I'm personally drawn to the telephone exchanges - I'm sure you could do one a week and that would keep you busy until June 2023!

Rotherhithe | 04.01.18 - 1:47 p.m. | #

@DG
I worry that your target audience can't spot a pisstake.

Darren | 04.01.18 - 2:14 p.m. | #

Many telephone exchanges are still in use by BT as offices and depots. Even though the serried ranks of plug-and-socket boards operated by well-spoken young ladies, or the later mechanical Strowger equipment taking up several floors of a buiding, may have long ago been replaced by a box of electronics which would fit into a large cupboard, all the cables still go into the building so they can't sell, let alone demolish, it.

timbo again | 04.01.18 - 2:24 p.m. | #

@timbo: Not so. BT are having to leave their FLAxman exchange (named after sculptor John Flaxman) because the landlord won't renew the lease, so it'll become more of a 'Lost' exchange than ever.

Gerry | 04.01.18 - 3:06 p.m. | #

I vote for telephone exchanges, if only because some of the buildings are so distinctive and interesting.

You really don't have to do them all though...

Frankie Roberto | 04.01.18 - 3:47 p.m. | #

Sorry but the letters (where shown) on mobile phones are not the same as on UK landline phones.

On landline phones the O and Q are mapped to 0, while the Z doesn't appear.

Bryn Davies | 04.01.18 - 3:51 p.m. | #

As evidenced by many of the comments above, this is one of the funniest wind ups I've ever read by anybody! (And you've done some good ones yourself down the years!) Brilliant - you even had me fooled until about midway through the second section!!

Philip Brown | 04.01.18 - 4:08 p.m. | #

I'm just impressed that in an age of austerity, DG has evidently got hold of a much bigger jam jar this year than ever before.

Dominic H | 04.01.18 - 4:21 p.m. | #

Is it really only speakers of British English who use "oh" when speaking a number which includes a zero? Does the rest of the world always say "zero"?

Malcolm | 04.01.18 - 4:24 p.m. | #

The problem with telephone exchanges is that so many of them are the most depressingly ugly buildings - and that's from someone who doesn't dislike either fifties/sixties architecture or concrete.

Sarah | Homepage | 04.01.18 - 4:28 p.m. | #

@Gerry - I did say "many", not "all"

timbo again again | 04.01.18 - 4:45 p.m. | #

Looks like a complete non-starting wind up.

Far better to visit the London Heritage Pubs with historic interiors.

Running Correspondent | 04.01.18 - 6:20 p.m. | #

Telephone exchanges for sure, because the names were truly quirky. In my old part of north-east London we had Coppermill (you'd get to visit a waterworks), Larkswood (a long-abandoned swimming pool) and Silverthorn (haven't a clue).

James Webber | 04.01.18 - 7:26 p.m. | #

Spoiler: I won't be working my way through any of these four ideas this year.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 04.01.18 - 8:00 p.m. | #

Apologies for the appalling suggestions. Won't make the same mistake next year.

Andrew | 04.01.18 - 9:40 p.m. | #

It wasn't only London exchanges with its 3-number codes: Watford could be dialled from the 01 area by prefixing its numbers with 92 (WA).

NickK | 04.01.18 - 9:46 p.m. | #

I would have gone for phone exchanges!

Another idea, you have done the first mile on Londons A roads, why not do mile 2, Mile 3 until you get out of London?

Or possibly sites of Tube stations/transport projects that were never built?

Or following old tram/trolleybus routes?

Simon Guy | 04.01.18 - 10:09 p.m. | #

Malcolm, In the USA "Oh" is used for zero most of the time when voicing 'Phone numbers and street addresses. And we too went from 'ATlantic 2886' to 'LIncoln 3-2886' to the present '301-384-2886'.

Colesville Garth | 04.01.18 - 10:14 p.m. | #

Nowadays we have all got used to the idea that "I" is not the same thing as "1", and "O" is not the same thing as "0". But back in the fifties, there were plenty of people who saw no difference, and would use them interchangeably. Hence the mapping of "O" to "0" for phone codes, and similarly Ruislip exchange was always stipulated as "RU4", because if it had been spelled "RUIslip" people would have dialled "RU1".

I am a bit sad that the popular vote is not going to be followed in this instance, regardless of its percentage score, because we all know, don't we, that the majority must get its way.

Malcolm | 04.01.18 - 10:23 p.m. | #

You be a bit sad, Malcolm. I'm cockahoop that we won't have to read 283 posts about telephone exchanges.

James W | 04.01.18 - 10:35 p.m. | #

A bit late in the day (just finished work) but I am also voting for telephone exchanges first, with postal districts a close second.

I know that whichever one you do choose, we’ll be in for a treat this year :)

Rob Healy | Homepage | 05.01.18 - 1:16 a.m. | #

I quite like the 1960s annexe on MUSeum exchange. Nice views from the top floor.

martin | 05.01.18 - 4:39 a.m. | #

No surprise that telephone exchanges proved popular DG, especially given the nature of much of your regular readership. What a shame it was a windup because there are many interesting stories to tell, such as the 'special' exchanges. As a schoolboy fascinated by the ability to 'tap' phone numbers and avoid payment in phoneboxes, I stumbled across FEDeral, the government's secret exchange connecting all departments and subsequently said to be located in a hardened Whitehall tunnel. The Royal Navy had TRAfalgar said to be in the strange Citadel bunker by Horse Guards Parade. There were other secret exchanges in the 'Rotundas' that subsequently had the QE2 Centre built on top.

Jim Brettell | 05.01.18 - 9:42 a.m. | #

If anyone would like to start up a blog where they visit all 283 London telephone exchange codes, and commit to updating it, I'll gladly plug it.

My life is too short.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 05.01.18 - 9:47 a.m. | #

@ Malcolm: It was merely coincidental that RU4 was equivalent to RUI. Ruislip was one of the 'Fringe' exchanges beyond the London 'Director' system but still near enough to be a local call. They had ordinary geographic names rather than the more interesting and quirky ones within London.

To avoid confusion with the three-letter London codes (and because a total of seven digits were needed for local automatic calls), Fringe codes were two letters and up to two numbers (e.g. DA, TF0, LK87). They could not be dialled outside London, nor could they be prefixed with the London's 01 STD code.

Finding meaningful Fringe codes to slot in between all the three-letter codes must have been like solving a Rubik cube! Compromises often had to be made, e.g. X was sometimes used (e.g. Essendon XN79) and Orpington was arbitrarily given MM because O and 0 were used for Operator and STD access. The massive demand for new numbers meant that short local codes were seen as a luxury and they were replaced by the longer STD codes well before the 071/081 split.

Gerry | 05.01.18 - 11:11 a.m. | #

When I was a kid our telephone number was 01-467-1547. I remember looking up the 467 exchange, I think it stood for Imperial and had something to do with Napoleon III's estate near Bromley. There might be some interesting stories to uncover with telephone exchanges...

tintinhaddock | 05.01.18 - 11:22 a.m. | #

@ DG: I don't think anyone expects you to visit ALL of London's telephone exchanges ! I was disappointed that it was a wind-up.

But the occasional post would be very welcome, especially with the high levels of interest that are being expressed by your readers. It doesn't even have to involve a visit: the basic detail and a few links would suffice. I have plenty of background info I could send you, as no doubt many others have. Please relent !

@ tintinhaddock: You're correct. Chislehurst had to be renamed (along with Chigwell and Chingford) because it clashed with CHIswick and hence became IMPerial because Napoleon's III's son Louis Napoleon, The Prince Imperial, lived there.

Gerry | 05.01.18 - 12:00 p.m. | #

I'm late to this and probably would have fallen for it, hook, line and sinker!

Gerry, do you know where UPLands comes from? It was in Purley and we did live up a hill so I may have an idea.... :-)

Chris | 05.01.18 - 2:27 p.m. | #

@ Chris: Purley would have clashed with STReatham, so it had to settle for the more generic UPLands to reflect the open high ground in the area (there's also an Uplands Road in Kenley).

Purley's second unit was BYWood for similar reasons; the awkward letters that matched 299 didn't lend themselves to anything geographic, and Fringe area local numbers weren't allowed to start with 9 so that ruled out its use for a two letter code (e.g. CY).

Gerry | 05.01.18 - 3:17 p.m. | #

Getting back to the issue of O and 0, I remember it was common for mechanical typewriters to only have eight number keys - for 0 (zero) you used O or o (upper or lower case), for 1 (one) either capital I or lower case l.

Jeremy | 05.01.18 - 5:32 p.m. | #











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