What's New On These Pages: February 2001

Next month: March 2001

• Wednesday 28th February
  The chat room wasn't hugely busy during the mercifully brief 5-minute show (again, more people turned up during the draw than after it). It was annoying that Camelot took just over an hour to release the full results tonight (they normally take 30-45 minutes on a Wednesday), but it didn't stop me beating ITV and BBC teletext to putting them up...

• Saturday 24th February
  For once, we actually had people turning up on time in the chat room and it was possibly the busiest session of the year. No problems with the live TV show commentary or the three draws, but Alan Dedicoat did seem to be rushing things too much, because the "Voice of the Balls" duly forgot to read out the machine name or ball set for the main draw this evening !

  BBC teletext had the machine (Merlin - obviously, its placard was visible during the draw build-up), but also initially left the ball set blank. I phoned up Camelot earlier than usual and got the ball set number (8) from them. Only a few minutes later, up popped that number on BBC teletext, hmmm...maybe I should have put the wrong number up :-)

  It was irritating to have to wait some 75 minutes for Camelot to issue the results - I had to phone them something like 6 times tonight to finally get all the figures (they were slow with both the Extra and Thunderball full results). However, the one compensation is that I easily beat both ITV and BBC teletext to putting them up.

• Wednesday 21st February
  The chat room was, as usual, busier after the draw than during it (maybe people aren't still used to the pre-8.45pm draw on a Wednesdays yet ?). No problems for the live TV show commentary and draw tonight, plus I was the first to put up the full results.

• Saturday 17th February
  The chat room was moderately busy this evening (with the bulk of people predictably timing their entry to the room just before the Thunderball) and there were no problems with the TV show commentary or draw. I was the fastest to put up the full results, just less than an hour after the main draw.

• Wednesday 14th February
  It was actually moderately busy in the chat room for tonight's draw, which went pretty smoothly (even if it did have to compete with Manchester United live on ITV). I got the full results up about 50 minutes after the draw and duly beat BBC and ITV teletext to putting them up.

• Tuesday 13th February
  Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover draw.

• Saturday 10th February
  The chat room didn't start filling up until just before the first draw (the Thunderball) and people left fairly quickly after the three draws (and, yes, there was a "wave" of entrants turning up 30 minutes or more late !). No problems with the draws or commentary, but when I put up the full results about an hour after the draw, BBC teletext seemed to have them up too when I checked them (but I did beat ITV teletext).

  Amusingly, when I got the full results from Camelot's phone line, they couldn't actually tell me how much was rolled over to Wednesday's draw from tonight's main lottery, even when I phoned again 10 minutes later. The same "missing" figure was duly omitted from BBC 1's teletext, but I reverse-calculated it and put it on the site of course, ahead of even Camelot's own phone line :-)

  ITV teletext was even worse - not only didn't they have the unwon jackpot amount, they also had a headline "one ticket scoops the 4m jackpot" (was still there on Sunday at 12.40am - clearly a headline from last Wednesday's draw !) right above text that correctly stated that no-one had won the jackpot tonight. They also failed to update their Extra lottery info correctly (still having some of Wednesday's info on it - seems like someone was asleep at the wheel of ITV's teletext controls tonight...).

• Wednesday 8th February
  It was pretty quiet in the chat room tonight - only a few stragglers in for the live draw (as usual, more turned up after the thankfully brief TV show than during it). No problems putting up the full results, although it did take until about 9.30pm to get them (by the time I got around to checking ITV teletext at 9.40pm, they'd put them up [but BBC teletext hadn't]).

• Saturday 3rd February
  The ridiculously long 35 minute TV show dragged on as usual and the usual suspects turned up in the chat show to see the commentary and live draw. I was the first to put up the full results, about an hour after the draw.

• Thursday 1st February
  Yes, I'm up during the wee small hours this morning doing page updates (see the previous month link below for more info). Bought two more tickets for Saturday's rollover draw.

Previous month: January 2001

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