I AM A NUMBER - AND ALSO A FREE MAN...

I was probably the last person in my age group out of everyone I know (and likely also everyone I didn't) to get a mobile 'phone - and then only because someone gave one to me.  I could never remember my own number (and, having changed providers two or three times, my number changed with them), and it never really bothered me because I didn't consider the number important.  If anyone asked me for it, I got them to give me their number, then called it so that they would have mine.

It's strange for me to think that I never considered the number important, because some numbers are very important to me, especially my landline 'phone number, which has been in the family since 1960, and which has been in every New Town house I've ever lived in.  At the beginning of November, I changed my provider from TalkTalk to BT and lost my 59 year old number.  After nine days I've now got it back, and that sense of continuity leading right back to 1960 is very important to me.

Weird as it may sound, being deprived of my number was like losing part of my identity (as well as a piece of my personal history), and I felt bereft - as if a loved one had suddenly died.  The number was originally a GPO one, then a BT one, then went through a couple of other providers until it ended up at TalkTalk.  Listen - if you want a major headache every month querying your bill and talking to foreign TalkTalk agents on the 'phone or in 'Live Chat' on the Internet for up to three hours at a time, and being no further forward at the end than you were at the beginning, TalkTalk's the provider for you.

That's my sarcastic way of saying that if you value your sanity, avoid TalkTalk like the plague.  I'm quite prepared to accept that when/if everything works smoothly then they're fine, but the trouble is that things seldom seem to work smoothly with them.  You might get a few extra features for free that you pay for with other providers, but they're just not worth the hassle you get along with them.

Are you attached to your 'phone number, or wouldn't it bother you if you suddenly lost it and were given another?  Which, I suppose, is my way of trying to find out if I'm the only person in the world who thinks like I do when it comes to things that supply a sense of continuity and a link to the past, which my 59 year old number provides.  Or, out of all the weird posts I've written over the years, is this one just too weird for you?

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