A short post for writers who may not be aware of this–sometimes you need to have a phone number in a story. Or a cartoon, or film, whatever. Now you can use a real one, such as when Dave Eggars initially wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but you might want to not have curious people dialling your random number and annoying some poor sod at the other end who actually has that phone number.
Enter government sanctioned fictitious numbers reserved only for use in artistic endeavours. I know that at least Australia and the UK have them, the US probably does (I haven’t looked) and might be something you want to consider. For Australia, you can find a list here on the ACMA website.
