Better still, if you live alone, have an ex-directory number.

And how long has that particular number been your ex-directory number?

Get a phone and a second, ex-directory number.

MacKenzie says it's "not an unknown way of doing business" in which somebody is paid to get an ex-directory number.

He picked up the phone and dialled the ex-directory number Sir Charles had given him.

Admits use of "search agents" to obtain ex-directory numbers and electoral role details, among other information.

He says some journalists were using Whittamore up to 400 times for criminal records checks and ex-directory numbers.

Finding an ex-directory number would be £75.

Christ, there's nowhere that the Edinburgh Call me on my ex-directory number here, or at home tonight.

Obviously there should be restrictions on phone tapping and subscribers should have the right to an ex-directory number.

Why should Ashton have an ex-directory number?

Oh hang on the ex-directory number's ringing.

One of the ex-directory numbers was attributed by Whittamore to Milly's family home.

The main focus will be on ex-directory numbers, which mean that published directories are incomplete as listings of telephone-owning households.

'This is an ex-directory number.

People like Mily Dowler, ex-directory numbers.

Suppose that's an ex-directory number used only by the top Watchmen if they want to talk to ... well, let's say their Supremo."

The Data Protection Act means that reporters can be criminalised for such basic journalist practices as obtaining ex-directory numbers which they need to do to check stories are accurate.

One reason for this is lack of awareness of the scale of the problem and the research will start by documenting this in terms of the incidence of ex-directory numbers.

"The subscriber on the ex-directory number I gave Jack Fraser is Major the Earl St. Maur of Woodlands Manor, Sussex."

The two ex-directory numbers, however, were "blagged" illegally from British Telecom's confidential records by one of Whittamore's associates, John Gunning, who works from a base in Wiltshire.

Davies cites a company that has vast database of 10 million ex-directory numbers and mobiles - used by debt collectors - that claims to be drawn up legally and "in consultation with the Information Commissioner".

Documents seized from Steve Whittamore, a private investigator, in 2003 revealed how he "blagged" details such as ex-directory numbers, car registrations and BT family and friend lists for hundreds of celebrities, sports stars and ordinary members of the public.

But if that may have been understandable, Jay could have pressed on principles - he might have asked a tabloid editor if phone hacking, or obtaining a person's medical details, their phone bills, or an ex-directory number, could ever be in the public interest.

Seized documents included 13,343 requests for confidential information from 305 journalists In 2007 the information commissioner "berated the police and PCC over their feeble prosecution and condemnation, respectively, of a range of offences, from garnering ex-directory numbers to hacking into the police national computer."