‘God’s’ phone number tallying calls worldwide

LONDON — The plague of people ringing the number God gives as his telephone number to TV reporter Bruce Nolan in the film “Bruce Almighty” has spread across the Atlantic.

The film is set in Buffalo, N.Y., where this particular phone number apparently does not exist. But it does exist in a number of other areas of the United States, including Colorado, where it belongs to a radio station which has had to set up a special answering service to deal with callers. And it is the phone number of a 28-year-old caterer who lives in the Manchester suburb of Irlam, England. Andy Green receives up to 70 phone calls a day and, according to the Daily Mirror, is being rung up by “every religious nutter in Manchester.

“I have to tell them I’m not the Messiah,” the paper quotes him as saying. “I’m just a caterer from Irlam. When the phone rang the first time and someone said, ‘Is that God?’ I just laughed. Since then it’s gone mad. At weekends I’m getting up to 70 calls a day. Most people ring off when they hear my voice. They don’t expect God to have a Manchester accent.”