Many years ago, when we had only two telephone books, one for Dublin and the other for the country, I fell ill on holidays in Rosslare and found myself bereft of anything to read, except for these two phone books.
While I have to say that these make quite dull reading, on reflection - and in desperation - I realised that they could offer potential material for research into the pattern of migration from different parts of the country to Dublin.
By comparing the number of columns in the two directories devoted to reasonably common surnames, I was able to establish that there were only 21 surnames that appeared more frequently in the country than in the Dublin directory, all names native to Cork and Kerry or Donegal.
This confirmed a hypothesis I had developed that from these two most distant corners of the country, there was less migration to Dublin and more to elsewhere - including in the case of the two south-western counties to Cork city. As I had always suspected, the story about Cork people taking single tickets to Dublin was a myth.
Since that time I have spent little time reading telephone directories, of which there are now six volumes. But late on the night before last, I heard that a granddaughter had raised a question about the geographical distribution of international telephone prefixes, which generally follow a regular geographical pattern - but some of which seem curiously misplaced.
Simultaneously I woke up to the realisation that this was actually Thursday night, a fact that owing to the Christmas season had hitherto eluded me, and that my Saturday article was due for delivery to The Irish Times by lunchtime next day.
So, not having any topic in mind at such a late stage, that of international telephone codes seemed to offer the quickest way out of meeting my contractual obligation on time.
An hour's examination of the colourful introduction to the directory soon showed that my granddaughter had a point, one that I could share with readers, who in any event I feel will scarcely want to read anything serious on a weekend so delicately poised between Christmas and the new year.
Many of you will be aware that the North American international code is 1 and Russia's code starts with 7. Clearly it is the privilege of super-powers to have single-number codes, for these are the only two single-number codes which exist.
All other countries have two-figure or three-figure codes. These start with the figure 2 in the case of African countries, with 3 or 4 in the case of Europe, with 5 for Latin America, with 6 for Australia and Oceania, with 8 for the Far East and 9 for the rest of Asia.
About 40 countries have two-figure prefixes, whilst the rest of us, the smaller fry, have to use three figures. But then there are the anomalies which raised questions in my granddaughter's mind.
First of all, not only US-controlled Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Island but almost all Caribbean countries are effectively incorporated in North America for telephonic purposes.
Indeed, so far as the telephone system is concerned they might as well be part of US/Canada. For example, the Indianapolis code is 1.765 and that of the island of Dominica is 1.767; Nashville is 1.423 and Bermuda is 1.441. And for some reason I cannot imagine, the island state of St Vincent and the Grenadines - what a romantic name for a country - does not have a prefix of its own but uses that of the Dominican Republic, which is more than 500 miles away at the other end of the Caribbean.
Only two Caribbean countries have thrown off the shackles of what might be described unkindly as US telephonic domination: Cuba (as you might expect) and Haiti. These two have chosen to be part of Latin America, sporting prefixes starting with 5.
So also have the French-owned islands of St Pierre and Miquelon off the coast of Canada - all that remains of France's 18th-century North American empire. Am I wrong in wondering whether this is perhaps a reflection of French resistance to American influence?
The Netherlands Antilles is treated as an integral part of the Netherlands for telephonic purposes but, surprisingly, the neighbouring Dutch colony of Aruba (an oil-rich island off the coats of Venezuela), has an African prefix, starting with 2 - as, oddly, have Iceland and Greenland.
In Europe 11 countries have the prefix 4, the other 35 being squeezed together tightly under the prefix 3. Interestingly two former parts of the Soviet Union, the Ukraine and Armenia, seem to have chosen to join Europe telephonically for they too have prefixes starting with 3.
By contrast, Armenia's two Caucasian neighbours, Azerbaijan and, more surprisingly, Georgia, have abandoned the Russian sphere and have adopted the Asian prefix 9, as also have two of the Central Asian States, Turkmenistan and Kyrghyzstan.
However Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have remained within the Russian orbit, retaining the prefix 7.
One can't helping to feel that some at least of these apparent anomalies may have a geopolitical significance, for one must presume that whatever may be the forum in which these matters are decided - and I wonder where that is - many, even if not perhaps all of these choices must surely reflect wishes of the countries concerned.
Incidentally I recall how surprised I was when I first visited Washington in 1974 to find that it was not then possible to dial overseas numbers from the diplomatic quarter of that city. At that time one had to ring an operator in Pittsburgh to get through to anywhere outside North America, an arrangement that seemed primitive to a visitor from technologically advanced Ireland.
Of course the old system of dialling an operator had some merits. There are many stories about helpful operators in rural Ireland who, when you asked for a local number could tell you that the person concerned was out, what they were doing and when they would be back.
Ten or 11 years ago, however, I experienced this type of service from the Dublin international exchange.
I was ringing Moscow to find out from the Irish Times correspondent, then Conor O'Clery, what was happening in Russia: it was a time of crisis there. Having heard that direct dialling to Moscow was not working well, I dialled an operator instead, and the following exchange ensued. I gave no indication of who was ringing, nevertheless:
Me: "Can you give me Moscow 12343567 [or whatever the number was]?"
Operator: "Oh, Garret, Conor is out at the moment but he'll be back in an hour."
Direct dialling cannot compete with that kind of personal service.
Happy New Year!
gfitzgerald@irish-times.ie