A 37-year-old Japanese man has been arrested after placing 10,000 calls to directory assistance. He did not need to get phone numbers, rather, he called because he enjoyed having the operators chide him.

    He reportedly told police that he was lonely and grew to enjoy annoying the operators.

    "I would go into ecstasy when a lady scolded me," he was quoted as saying by Jiji Press.

    Telephone operators - who in Japan are almost always women - nicknamed him the "don't-hang-up-man".

    His calls usually came late and sometimes exceeded 200 times a night, Jiji Press said.