What's New On These Pages: March 2001

Next month: April 2001

• Saturday 31st March
  It was somewhat quiet in the chat room until about 5 minutes before the Thunderball draw, when people finally began drifting in. The live TV show commentary and draw went OK, plus I got the full results up first, some 50 minutes after the draws.

• Thursday 29th March
  Bought two more tickets for Saturday's rollover.

• Wednesday 28th March
  It was predictably quiet in the chat room thanks to Channel 5 airing the crucial World Cup qualifier against Albania live (which England won 3-1). Yes, I was watching that too, but it was fortunate that the draw was at half time. Only a few hardy souls ventured into the chat room for the live commentary and draw, which went OK. I put the full results up at full time, which annoyingly appeared to be 5-10 minutes after BBC and ITV teletext did.

• Saturday 24th March
  No problems with the live TV show commentary and draw in the chat room tonight - people are starting to be able to judge when to come in (about 7.55pm onwards) to catch all the draws on a Saturday. Camelot took about an hour to release the full results and I was the first to put them up. Bought two more tickets today for tonight's Super Draw.

• Wednesday 21st March
  I'm not quite normal yet (see last Saturday), but well enough now to do a complete set of updates, including the usual manual comments today. No problems with tonight's commentary and live draw in the chat room (which was moderately busy) and I put the full results up first, about 50 minutes after the draw. I actually thought there was a problem because my code warns if ticket sales are below 25 million (I assume it's a typo), but ticket sales were that bad tonight !

  Camelot actually phoned me today at work for a change, to do a telephone survey about their public phone line, which I usually find pretty reliable (even though it really is about time they used e-mail to talk to the public !). Yes, I know about the feedback e-mail on their Web site, but I want them to send me winner/sales info via e-mail for each draw...). I gave the phone line a 6 out of 7 rating, BTW.

• Saturday 17th March
  Well, this weekend I had what can only be described as "stomach problems" (which stretched into the following week, albeit not as bad), so I did the minimum updates I could manage to the site and then collapsed to bed. I still went in the chat room and explained to hardy souls about my condition and, yes, there was the usual commentary and live draw of course.

  I got the full results about an hour after the draw and beat everyone else to putting them up, despite my frail condition. The manual comments for this draw were actually done together with next Wednesday's, which is about when I started to feel better.

• Wednesday 14th March
  No problems with tonight's draws in the chat room (although people only came in dribs and drabs) and I put the full results up before anyone else (about 45 minutes after the draws). Added a Software Technology programme mention on the home page just in case lottery site visitors might be unemployed Merseyside programmers (hey, there might be one or two !).

• Saturday 10th March
  Not much to report in this rather uneventful set of draws - the chat room was moderately busy for the draws and I was the first to put up the full results, almost an hour after the draws.

• Wednesday 7th March
  As often happens nowadays, the lottery show had to compete with European soccer on ITV (this time was Manchester United), but that didn't stop several people from coming into the chat room just before the draw. No problems with the draw or commentary and I was the first to put up the full results (about 45-50 minutes after the draw).

• Saturday 3rd March
  No problems during the tediously long Saturday TV show as the live commentary and draw went smoothly. Plenty of people in the chat room, but Camelot took just over an hour to release the full results - they seem to be taking longer and longer nowadays. Still, the only compensation is that other places suffer the same delay, so I beat ITV and BBC teletext to putting up the full results.

Previous month: February 2001

© Richard K. Lloyd & Connect Internet Solutions Limited  2024