A UCLA student has had the good fortune (or the misfortune, depending on how you view it) to acquire Paris Hilton's old mobile phone number - and has accordingly received a flood of SMSes and calls directed at the highly-talented former jailbird.

San Francisco gal Shira Barlow got a new phone and number after dropping her old mobile down a toilet, Yahoo! explains. What she didn't know, though, was that she now had Ms Hilton's recycled number, but was soon set straight when she was besieged by "wrong-number calls" and text messages "mostly between 2 and 4am on weekends".

The action hotted up as Hilton's birthday on 17 February approached, with one caller demanding: "Oh my God. Where's the party?" A male admirer apparently "purred" in a foreign accent: "Baby girl, how are you?"

The mood changed as Hilton's spell in chokey began, when "messages about parties were replaced by dozens expressing condolences". Barlow explained: "People were scared for her."

While traffic understandably dropped while Hilton languished in the slammer, her release provoked renewed activity. One message improbably declared: "It's disgusting how they treated you in there, but once again you have showed the world that you can do anything."

Barlow said she had "resisted the temptation" to pose as Hilton to get into swanky jet-parties, indulge in drunk-driving, get jailed and appear in amateur grumble flicks, but says she'll plans to "keep the number because...it has been a greater source of amusement than a hassle". ®

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