What's New On These Pages: December 2000

Next month: January 2001

• Saturday 30th December
  No problems with tonight's 3 draws (a few stragglers in the chat room watched the draw live - as usual, more turned up after they'd finished than during it !) - I was the first to put up the full results [about 70 minutes after the draw - Camelot were slow tonight].

• Friday 29th December
  Because several people had requested it (I was lethargic about it because of the rubbish aspects to the game), I've added all winning numbers, sales figures and numerical analysis to the Lottery Extra section. Two obvious omissions include Prize Winners (there aren't any yet !) and Ticket Checker (pointless since I can tell you that your ticket's lost...).

  I also went back through the manual comments for the Extra draw and added hyperlinks and additional numerical analysis comments where appropriate. I've also belatedly added a Big Draw 2001 section (since the game is identical to last year's, I wasn't in a hurry). Annoyingly, Camelot will close their phone lines between 5.30pm 31st Dec 2000 and 8.30am 1st Jan 2001, so people who've won in Big Draw 2001 will be left stranded for at least 8 hours...

• Wednesday 27th December
  Very unusually, people turned up in the chat room 10 minutes before the TV show, left just before the show started and then no-one else came in again until the TV show had finished ! Work that one out if you will :-) I still did the draw live in the chat room (no problems) and got the full results quite quickly (50 mins after the draw and well ahead of teletext).

• Saturday 23rd December
  It was deathly quiet in the chat room tonight, as only one or two hardy souls ventured in to watch the last Year 2000 draws before Christmas. No problems with the draw updates and I got the full results up about 55 minutes after the draw (beating teletext).

• Friday 22nd December
  Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover draw.

• Wednesday 20th December
  No problems with tonight's 2 draws, except for the fact that barely a soul came into the chat room during the live commentary and draw :-( I got the full results up about an hour after the draw, but this still beat ITV and BBC teletext to them.

• Saturday 16th December
  It was pretty quiet in the chat room during the draw tonight (busier after it, in fact, than during it !), but at least the draws went fine and I was the first to put up the full results (about 50 minutes after the draw). Camelot had their now-almost-expected £1 jackpot discrepancy to cap things off.

• Thursday 14th December
  Bought two more tickets for Saturday's rollover draw.

• Wednesday 13th December
  I was commentating on the official Liverpool FC Web site for tonight's game (which they won 3-0 vs. Fulham after extra time) - it meant I could only do a Web update for the draw in the middle of the first half (but it was live). At full time in the game (around 9.50pm), I phoned Camelot and got the full results, but undoubtedly this was slower than teletext (and maybe one or two other Web sites ?).

• Saturday 9th December
  Tonight's lottery show had a surprising number of musical guests (four in all, the best of which was Texas of course) and there were no problems doing the live commentary in the chat room or the draws in there. I was the first to put up the full results about 45 minutes after the draw.

  Began coding on individual Extra lottery pages and an Extra lottery home page - they are both now available, but with the CGI-based hyperlinks removed from the pages until I complete the code (so, no, you can't get a list of all Extra winning numbers on one page, but you will be able to soon).

• Wednesday 6th December
  We had a silly 30 minute show today - the first 25 minutes were some sort of Buried Treasure programme about museums and, annoyingly, my TV mag claimed it was all one show combined with the lottery draws, which it definitely wasn't because the first programme had closing credits ! The chat room was reasonably busy and I put the full results up about 45 minutes after the draw, which was "fast" for Camelot (and before anyone else).

• Saturday 2nd December
  It was moderately busy in the chat room and I got the full results in less than an hour, which was impressive for a Saturday draw (and meant I was the first to put them up too).

Previous month: November 2000

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