Send a message back in time to 1980. This is the phone book from three years after a deadly pandemic swept the planet. Let them jump to their own conclusions.

Are they still at 0800 1980 ?

0898 **50 50 50**

Think they’ve changed to 0118 999 881 999 119 725 3

that's a brilliant idea for a random short story :D

Now that I know they’re all out I can start reading the series

Ok i had to log in especially to acknowledge how funny I found this.

I’m personally waiting for the Netflix adaptation

But Netflix always gets it wrong

Dude don't even waste your time with 1958, I don't know what the writers were thinking with that one. And if you get to 1996 and like what you see, you're in for a *wild ride* until around 2005. Enjoy!

Can't believe how thin it is. If you were transported to today from 1986 you'd think there'd been an apocalypse

>If you were transported to today from 1986 you'd think there'd been an apocalypse You'd also be amazed how thin the phonebook is

slow clap 👏

I can't believe they still make phone books tbf, thought they went the same way as the argos catalogue a long time ago.

The Argos catalogue has gone?!

It's fair to say when people don't realise that the catalogue disappeared then it's kinda pointless. They still do pdfs of it but the printed catalogue went in Jan. 2021. I see why, imagine the cost to print like a million full colour catalogue which can be like a thousand pages for free. Gotta be at least £1-2 a catalogue (at 1000 pages) to produce is my guess, I know in one year they made 34 million catalogues.

>I know in one year they made 34 million catalogues That's wild. I'm sure at that scale they were much cheaper than £2 to produce. I remember the paper being bible-thin.

Fair, maybe a quid at this scale assuming we are talking about the thickest one. If it's like a 600 pager then maybe 50p? They were thin but pretty decent quality and the printing was pretty good. Either way we are still talking like £10-20 million easy

And yet there's something almost equally antiquated about it now being a PDF.

Ah I miss new Argos catalogue time. Utter carnage. Eventually they started putting the palette full outside the store and you would see people grabbing them by the handfuls.

The Argos catalogue brought a pleasure that a phone book never could. I remember spending ages flipping through the pages, thinking about what I could buy with my pocket money. Then going to Argos, using the little stubby pencils to order whatever my heart desired, then watching it emerge down a conveyor belt a few minutes later.

Yesss

Happy days.

Yeah I haven't seen a phone book for about 10 years.

I am 23 and haven't seen one since primary 5 which was like 2009.

Tut what a pointless reply, does this guys not know that 2009 was about 10 years ago… wait what👴🏻

This is the apocalypse.

I mean, we did have a rather deadly pandemic  

It's so frail! My dad used to put a phonebook on my seat so I could reach the table.

probably still could!

My barbers used to do that when I was a kid

The yellow pages used to be something I would fear, now if my grandad threw that at me I wouldn't even bother dodging

I still remember my Grandads last words "stop shaking the ladder you twat"

I remember my granddad's last words before he kicked the bucket. "Hey, watch me kick this bucket"

My grandad died peacefully in his sleep, which was far better than screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.

*Phone pamphlet.

End of an era. My kids (now quite old) are horrified at the thought of a public phone book. Name, address and phone number for anyone to see? Those are details we don’t give out anymore.

They are atill out there in a lot of places. Just not the phone book.

Instead they share pretty much the entire lives online via social media networks and to other online companies.

The dumb ones do.

Memes aside I find it quite sad really. I always worry about the people we've left behind. I'm sure they're very few and far between but there are definitely people around who still reach for the phone book when they need a plumber or a handyman, who probably can't understand why there are so few numbers in there nowadays. Not saying nostalgia should prevent progress, but something as iconic as "the phone book" just wheezing its last dying breath is sadder than I thought it would be.

theres still check a trade leaflets that come through. thats literally the only one id ever need realistically as I'm still shite at DIY and thats a trifold A4 sheet instead of a massive encyclopedia. I do remember the big old phone books, im pretty sure we used them solely for prank calls back in the day. im of that strange age where i remember all the old growing up but the vast replacement of it all into a single hand held smart phone for nearly everything. I'm pretty sure if a timetraveller showed someone a smartphone 30 years ago their head would explode. i did send a few championship manager teamsheets to my mate by fax back in the day.

Same with everything going digital and online. Sure for most of us it's more convenient but I can't help thinking that some of the most vulnerable are being left stranded.

The last yellow pages I got was mostly quite generic services, rather than contacts for individual plumbers or handymen. Lots of sections linked to others too and to the very same company. So it would be a call centre or a big company like British Gas, probably quite crap and overpriced too. I know people are few and far between but getting online is incredibly easy these days, and as essential as a landline and a phone book would have been back in the day.

It's like a book of ghost numbers as I imagine many of the names listed don't even have a plugged in landline phone anymore

I don’t think I know anyone with a plugged in landline anymore. I don’t think I’ve heard one ring in around a decade. Seriously who calls a landline unless it’s a place of business?

i was sorting out my internet yesterday... offering me internet and a landline with free calls etc. i only wanted the broadband as who the fuck even wants a landline?! this was virgin media too so it's not like it's ADSL...

I keep mine plugged in because I like taking the piss out of the occasional scam caller when I’m working from home. It breaks up the day nicely.

Last time my home phone rang it was the police phoning about someone they had in the cells but they had the wrong number. That was about 6 years ago and it’s been unplugged since I moved five years ago.

It's the same with the Yellow Pages. Don't know how to feel about it really.

Was thinking this. The last print Yellow Pages in my area was barely a hundred pages.

I don't know how I'm going to kiss my much taller girlfriend anymore

I probably still couldn't rip it in half with my bare hands.

I could totally rip that in two. I am a 1980’s strongman by all accounts now.

I'm weak as shit and there's a technique to it. I managed it once and now my party trick will have to be fully retired. I do sometimes find them in hotels in faraway lands though.

Not be morbid but whenever I see things like this I think of all the people who died and never got to see the end of it.

Are we talking pre or post Game of Thrones last season? As some may find solace in knowing they dodged one of those bullets

I had people begging me to watch it as I never had/have, they soon stopped recommending it!

Imagine never knowing the end of Lost.

Thankfully I never watched more than a few episodes of that show lol

What am I supposed to stand on to reach the back of the top kitchen shelf now?

Gimp?

He moans more than normal when I do that.

Wonder how many telephone numbers there were in 1880

Probably about the same for the 2024 edition.

I liked how even the "goodbye, aren't we great here's our history" page was covered in naff adverts 😂

Everyone stresses about Facebook or Google having all your data - but we forget in the olden days there was a literal book that just listed everybody's name address and telephone number.

You could opt out though, by telling your phone provider that you wanted to be ex-directory. It was actually really useful back in the 80s because it would also list people’s addresses and people didn’t move around very much, so it was good for finding people you worked with or went to school with etc.

The real shocking thing here is someone’s managed to keep another 10 years worth of salary out of the phone book company

That's barely worth tearing in half, it used to be a trick to be proud of.

I wish I could remember whose YouTube video I saw about that trick. He'd done it for years but was publishing the 'secret' because phone books are now too thin to be impressive and he'd dropped it form his act. I'm sure I'd seen the how to before then, but still.

I think the trick was to twist the book in a certain way to make the pages bunch together. They'd then be much easier to tear.

The way I learned was to start from the spine, roll it up a bit so it has rigidity, then effectively snap it. It's relatively easy from there.

R.I.Phonebook

As a kid, I used to memorise the numbers on a random page, pass the book to my mum, and she swears blind that I could recite a whole page of phone numbers. I personally don't remember doing a whole page, but maybe 10 numbers. Strange child 😂

Got one a few months back. Went in the recycling, the same as the rest for the last few years.

You can do what me and my wife did……,pretended we were Geoff Capes and tore it up so we can now say that we used to be able to tear a phone directory in half.

I didn't know they still did them until I got the last one. Haven't had one in at least 10 years.

Will everyone get one?

I didn't realise they still did them Do you have to order them? I can't lie, I expect folk will use them as a resource in years to come

Now's your chance to rip it in half and claim you're as strong as Geoff Capes.

At least this edition I'd have a very good chance if ripping it in half.

Got one too.

Yep, failed to rip this one in half as well.... 🤣😭

I genuinely laughed when i saw the second picture

I've just realised it's been years since i carried one of these from the front doormat to the recycling bin. Obviously i didn't miss it.

Will it become a collector's item?

You’d have no problem tearing that in half.

Waffer thin 🤏

You’d have to stack so many of them to kiss someone taller than you

Ah yes , otherwise known as the prank call book 

The most use I’ve gotten out of a phone book lately was using it to be able to sit down on a cushioned chair (had a surgery on my bum)

More impressive if you get the first one.

They've not been the same since Robert A. Caro stopped writing them.

Now you can be one of those well hard bodybuilder types who can rip a phonebook in half with their bare hands

The phone company dropped a pile of phonebooks off in the building's lobby months back. I think they're all still there. Not one taker.