Yesterday I phoned for a taxi to take me to the station. "Which station?" asked the voice on the line. "New Street station?" This should have rung alarm bells as I was in fact in Shipley, which is near Bradford and not at all near Mordor Central or any of Brum's other stations. But at this point I FD'ed. In my slight defence, Shipley station is on a triangle, with not only platforms but distinct buildings on two separate lines (one stub into Bradford, the other from Leeds on to Skipton and over the Pennines) and the platforms on the latter line are much newer than the others. So perhaps it was referred to locally as New Station? But no, I had of course dialled the wrong code, misreading a 7 as a 1. It was just chance that the same number in a different area was also allocated to a taxi.
Except, it got me thinking, it wasn't really chance, was it? A repetitive series of easily remembered numbers is likely to be a taxi or similar business. Probably you could try the same number preceded by almost any area code and get a taxi...
AA Carz (sic), Shipley: 01274 584444 if you want to play along on your own bill!