What's New On These Pages: April 2001

Next month: May 2001

• Saturday 28th April
  The new official Liverpool FC site (hosted and programmed by Connect) opened overnight, so that was "fun" keeping an eye on that whilst doing the draw and live commentary in the chat room tonight. A fair number of visitors watched the draws live in the room and I was the first to put up the full results, about an hour after the draw (though Camelot pulling that 4-match prize "stunt" was sneaky - had to get the woman from Camelot to check it with her manager).

• Thursday 26th April
  Bought two more tickets for Saturday's rollover.

• Wednesday 25th April
  The chat room was moderately busy (as usual, it was busier during the draw than after it) and the draw and live commentary went OK. I phoned up Camelot about 35 minutes after the draw had finished and they had the full results, but by the time I got them on the site, BBC teletext actually had them up (but ITV teletext didn't). I'll phone up 5 minutes earlier next Wednesday :-)

• Saturday 21st April
  The chat room was reasonably busy, as the BBC's lottery show desperately and shamelessly plugged the Lennox Lewis boxing fight (unusual for terrestrial UK TV to have a world championship boxing match live). The live TV show and commentary was OK, though the show made it difficult to hear the main draw's ball set and seemed to skip the Extra machine/ball set info completely ! I put the full results up about 50 minutes after the draw and surprisingly some 30 minutes before BBC or ITV teletext even got a sniff of them...

• Friday 20th April
  Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover.

• Wednesday 18th April
  Tonight's draw had to compete (a bit) with the live soccer on ITV (Manchester United played badly and lost), but there were still some die-hards in the chat room to watch the live commentary and draw go smoothly. I put the full results up just after full time in the United game, which surprisingly still beat ITV teletext (but not BBC teletext).

  PLUSLotto stopped sponsoring the virtual lottery tonight, so both the virtual lottery and the PLUSLotto section have been removed from the site. Neither section was wildly popular (accounting for less than 5% of the site's page impressions in total), so it's not a huge blow. Plus, the bonus is that I no longer have to think up new virtual lottery questions (which were getting tough to find !).

• Saturday 14th April
  The chat room was fairly busy tonight and I had no problems with the live commentary and draw (apart from the tedious length of the 35-minute show of course). I put the full results up before anyone else, about an hour after the draw.

• Wednesday 11th April
  The chat room was only moderately busy as the 5-minute show whizzed by (not really any commentary needed when it's that short !). As usual, more people came in after the draw than during it and, unusually, Camelot took a full hour to release the full results, which I put up before anyone else.

• Saturday 7th April
  No soccer on rival TV channels and the lure of a rollover brought in a reasonable number of people into tonight's chat room, where the live TV show commentary and draw went well. I put the full results up about an hour after the draw, easily beating the rest to them.

• Friday 6th April
  Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover.

• Wednesday 4th April
  Despite Leeds United on "the other side", there were still a reasonable number of people in the lottery chat room for what a surprisingly rushed show (started and finished more than one minute early). No problems with the live commentary and draw in the chat room and I was the first to put up the full results about 50 minutes after the draw.

Previous month: March 2001

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