The "official" way of writing phone numbers has changed over the years here. Before the days of STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialing), it was just exchange and number, e.g. Derby 23456.
When STD came in, the GPO recommended adding the code but still listing the exchange name, like this:
Derby (0DE2) 23456
When letters were dropped, that would become:
Derby (0332) 23456
The reason was that callers in the local area did not use the STD code but would instead have to dial a local routing code, so they needed the exchange name in order to look it up on the list.
The national format for showing how to dial to a small dependent exchange could look quite odd. For example, a village named Zelah near to where I once lived had to be accessed via the STD code of its group switching center, which was Truro (0872).
Anyone in Truro could call Zelah by dialing 54 plus the local 3-digit number, so the format for showing a Zelah number was:
Zelah (0872 54) 234.
The six big cities (London, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manchester) with 7-digit numbers generally had numbers listed with the STD code followed by a dash, e.g. 01-222 1234.
These days, the exchange names have pretty much been dropped and just the area code and local number given, e.g. (01692) 585000, or just 01692 585000. Many people now probably don't even know the name of their local CO.
As you said for Ireland, our network now will accept the full number and recognize it as a local call, even if you start by dialing your own area code.
Trumpy,
The British PC-style keyboards have some peculiar variations. The pound sterling sign (£) is located on shifted-3, and the # sign has is moved to an extra key over near the right hand side. For some peculiar reason, they also have " and @ the opposite way around to American keyboards, along with a few other minor changes.
The British variants also retained the original PC keyboard quirk of having the backslash (\) key located between the left-hand shift and Z. The American versions corrected that when the AT keyboard came out, thank goodness. I use an American-layout keyboard on my systems, and when I have to use a British one one someone else's system I'm always getting extra \ characters where I've gone for the left shift key.
The keyboards on sale here now have added the euro symbol to the top right of the 4 key, next to the dollar sign. I think its use will depend upon your keyboard configuration and code page settings.
