118.com Ask Us Anything

Yet another iNetNow:

Found this on Wikipedia (via nested tangents, read below for that...also, in the following quote, material between [] is added by this post's author for clarity and amusement):

Since May 2008, 118118 [a British directory assistance provider, coincidentally a subsidiary of InfoNXX] has introduced a service where you are able to call and ask any question you want and their info team will find you the answer. From "How tall is the Eiffel Tower?", to "What Bars are open late at night?"

Sure enough...it is described here:

When it comes to finding numbers, we’re the professionals. But that’s not all we can do for you. We can find as many numbers as you need in one call and we’ll put you straight through if you don’t have a pen. We can even tell you what films are on at your local cinema and give you show times. We can tell you what time your next train leaves or let you know what the nearest tube station to your destination is.
In summary, we can

• give you all the numbers you ask for during any call
• find you the business you want and tell you how close it is
• expertly search for business numbers or addresses even if you only have a small amount of information
• put you straight through to the number you want
• tell you what’s on and locate your cinema, give you the times and even tell you who’s in each movie
• give you departure and arrival times from the national train timetable
• tell you the nearest train or tube station to your destination
• give you directions over the phone to wherever you need to go

And if you call us from a mobile, we’ll always text you the numbers you need and for free, so there’s no extra charge and you don’t have the usual scramble for a pen and paper.
It’s no wonder we’re the most called number in the UK every day.

I wish them well. I like this idea wherever it appears, which is why I enjoy AskMeNow, and mourn iNetNow and Voce.

For your amusement (perhaps I should make this a separate post) I found all this through one of my famous mental/wikipedia nested tangents:

• I was listening to the first track of Vico C's Vivo, which begins with appears to be a short sample of the same song as used as the background music of the commercial I'd previously known as 'that Honda Rube Goldberg commercial'.
• I suddenly wanted to watch this commecial, since I never get tired of it, so I googled 'honda rube goldberg', and found it has a Wikipedia article, where I found out:
• Its name is 'Cog';
• That song is "Rapper's delight" by The Sugarhill Gang
• It's inspired or been spoofed by other commercials, including one for 118118.
• Naturally, I went to the Wikipedia article for 118118, where I found out about Ask Us Anything.

I should put a dummy entry in my HOSTS file for en.wikipedia.org so I get work done.