The UK also has something similar https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/phone-numbers/...
replies(1):
01 811 8055
This used to be the BBC number for call ins, particularly the kids TV show 'Swap Shop', but also for so much else during the 1970s and 1980s.
This number was retired in 1990 when the London ran out of phone numbers and switched to two different prefixes, 071 and 081. The former was advertised on TV as 'Inner London' and the latter as 'Greater London'. This bit of marketing kept everyone happy.
There was still a problem with numbers and the need to go for eleven digits. Hence, in 1995, the codes for London changed again, to 0171 and 0181. This was PHONEDAY.
But still, more numbers were needed, plus the tech behind the scenes was ever-evolving. Hence, in 2000, the numbers changed again for London, for everything to start with 020, so 0171 became 0207 and 0181 became 0208.
But then everyone got mobile phones and we no longer heard about how the economy was growing so quickly that we had this apparent incessant need for even more phone numbers. Furthermore, mobile phones had contacts built into them, so there was no need to remember phone numbers, which was just as well as eleven digits were not so easy to memorise, particularly when the prefixes had changed around so much.
Hence, my personal choice of fictional number. Apart from anything else, it enables me to see how well forms are validated, plus 01 811 8055 is only going to ever be recognised as a 'famous' number by Brits over a certain age.
https://screenrant.com/it-ycrowd-controversy-graham-linehan-...
Many classic tv shows have episodes and themes which are bad today. Star Trek has a lot of 60s attitudes — Mudds Women for example.
I choose to see them as signs at how far society has progressed. Or regressed in the case of trans.
In the 90s the U.K. TV soap “corronation street” - watched by about 30% if the population each week - had a trans character. The character had very little controversy.ant the same time everyone loved Dane Edna. And Mrs Merton.
But today those shows would be far more controversial.
On the flip side, Brookside had a pre watershed lesbian kiss and it was major amounts of outrage.
He made the very astute point that Stonewall's strategy was to take specific issues concerning lesbian women and gay men, and from these, derive broader principles which the general public could easily support. It was all about invoking a sense of fairness, and this is how they gradually built up support for equal rights.
He compared this to trans activism, and observed that these activists weren't following the same strategy. Instead, they were just telling people they're wrong, intimidating them into silence, and calling them bigots and scum and transphobic. He predicted that this approach was going to backfire. It seems he was right.
The other point he made was how trans activism more negatively affects women and especially lesbian women, many of whom had contacted him in distress at what they saw, increasingly so, as lesbian erasure. He talked about the death threats and violence towards lesbians that came from the trans activist side. He talked about how lesbian protesters had recently been kicked out of a Pride march for asserting their same-sex sexual orientation.
If we look at the points Graham Linehan has been making, they are very similar. His satirical profile on what was purportedly a lesbian dating site was a comedy bit with a serious point: that his ridiculous and overtly male presence on there was indistinguishable from the many other males on that app who called themselves lesbians. He was using comedy to draw attention to the erasure of a much more marginalized group, lesbian women.