- Wednesday 31st January
I was doing live commentary on the Manchester City vs. Liverpool
soccer game on the official LFC Web site, so I just did a
live Web update at half time and went back to the commentary of
the game once enough stuff had been done to get the lottery
pages updated. At full time, I got the full results (at around
10.00pm), but no doubt teletext [and maybe one or two Web sites]
beat me to it...
- Saturday 27th January
Apart from the interminable 35-minute lottery show, tonight's
live TV show commentary and draw in the chat room went OK,
with the "usual suspects" turning up.
I was even the first to put up the full results at about 9.00pm.
- Wednesday 24th January
I was doing the second leg of the Liverpool vs. Crystal Palace
soccer commentary live tonight, so it was another Web-only update
(in theory, but the live updates page just froze on me for no reason,
so I had to update it "not exactly live" a little later).
I had to wait until full time to get the full results and they went
up at around 9.50pm (may have been beaten by one or two other sites
and almost certainly by teletext).
Received my subscription certificate through the post - annoyingly
it's only for the next 6 months though. At least I'm covered through
to 18 August 2001 for the moment.
- Saturday 20th January
There were a reasonable number of chat room visitors, turning
up to suffer 35 minutes of the new "Jet Set" show (why the
heck does any lottery show have to ever be more than
10 minutes long ? "Jet Set" was poor in that they continued
the show for some 5 minutes after the third draw of the
evening had completed [i.e. everyone had switched over by
them]). No problems with the live TV show commentary
and draw in the chat room and I was the first to put up the
full results, some 50 minutes after the draws.
- Wednesday 17th January
We had a moderate number of visitors to the chat room (still
a fair number turning up well after the draw had taken place)
and the TV commentary and draw went fine. Camelot released the
full results about an hour after the draw, but I still beat
ITV and BBC teletext to putting them up. The biggest surprise
of the evening, of course, was that someone actually won
the Lottery Extra (took 19 draws to finally get a jackpot
winner).
- Monday 15th January
Sent off my seventh subscription payment, but this time was
annoyingly for only 6 months (Camelot are currently refusing
to accept 12 month subscriptions because they had uncertainty
about the licence renewal, but since they've now got the
licence, they should really revert back to a 12 month sub,
unless they're planning on changing the main lottery game
of course !).
- Saturday 13th January
There was a reasonable number of visitors to the chat room
tonight, both before, during and after the draws for a
change :-) No problems with the live TV show and draw
commentary (last of the series for the dreadful Stars
Saturday show) and I was the first to put up the full results.
Reduced estimated jackpot for a normal Wednesday draw from
£4m to 3.5m.
- Thursday 11th January
Bought two more tickets for Saturday's Super Draw.
- Wednesday 10th January
I was busy doing a live commentary of Crystal Palace vs.
Liverpool (which Liverpool surprisingly lost 2-1) on the
official Liverpool FC Website, so I only did a Web page
update live for tonight's draw (I never went in the chat
room).
I phoned Camelot at full time for the full results,
only for them to claim that they weren't available yet
(yes, some 1 hour and 15 minutes after the draw). A quick
check on BBC 1 teletext confirmed that they were
available, so I phoned again and, sure enough, they were
"magically" now available.
- Tuesday 9th January
Received my lottery subscription renewal form today
which, for the first time, included the optional
Lottery Extra of course (which I will definitely not
be subscribing to !).
- Saturday 6th January
We had a reasonable number of people turn up in the chat room
this evening to watch the 3 draws and the TV show commentary.
No problems with either, though Camelot took an hour to
release the full results, which tied me with ITV teletext to
putting up the full results.
- Wednesday 3rd January
The usual "crew" turned up in the lottery chat room to see the
commentary for a Wednesday lottery TV show that inexplicably
lasted 15 minutes, instead of the usual 10. No problems doing the
draw, but it looked like ITV teletext put the full results the
same as me (difficult to tell exactly when cos they have 9 sub-pages
now that take 3-4 minutes to go through !). Ticket sales hit rock
bottom (the worst ever), no doubt thanks to the holiday period.
- Monday 1st January
Well, the Big Draw 2001 TV show's two draws may have gone smoothly (both in the chat room
and on TV), but the ticket sales certainly didn't. They were less than a
third of what Camelot estimated and the top prize in Game 1 barely exceeded
£50,000 ! ITV teletext announced there were no Game 1 jackpot winners
and 5 Game 2 jackpot winners at around 8.30am, just as I was phoning Camelot
(who, one minute after their phone line opened, did not have the
full results on their computer system !).
I phoned a second time less than 10 minutes later and got the full results
up at around 8.40am, roughly the same time, it appears, as ITV and BBC
teletext and, surprisingly, the official Web site too (who didn't update
their Big Draw 2001 numbers live on the night).
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