What's New On These Pages: June 2002

Next month: July 2002

• Saturday 29th June
  It is crazy that on a way-too-long 45 minute "lottery show", there isn't a draw for the first 30 minutes of the programme. The BBC seem to think that we need some sort of additional entertainment on a Saturday because the chance of winning millions of pounds obviously isn't enough for the average viewer. Well, they're 100% wrong, you'll be unsurprised to know - we just want the draws and nothing else. Get it sorted, BBC !

  Right, now that rant's over, it's time to mention that the chat room was moderately busy tonight for the TV show's commentary and draws, which went ahead OK. Camelot then decided to take just over an hour to release the full results on their phone line, some 15 minutes after BBC teletext. The official site almost beat me to the full results, but since I got them off teletext, I did manage to be the first on the Net with them.

• Wednesday 26th June
  It was surprisingly busy in the chat room tonight for the live TV show commentary and draw, which proceeded fine. Reverting to their usual slow selves, Camelot were beaten to the full results by a good 10 minutes by BBC teletext.

• Saturday 22nd June
  No problems with the live TV show commentary and draw, but perhaps the surprise of the night was Camelot getting the full results in a reasonable time (about 45 minutes after the draw), allowing them to beat BBC and ITV teletext to them by over 30 minutes (probably the first time that's happened in 2 years) !

• Thursday 20th June
  Bought two more tickets for Saturday's £15m Super Draw.

• Wednesday 19th June
  No World Cup footy today, so the 10 minute lottery TV show came as something of a withdrawal antidote :-) No problems with the live TV show commentary and draw in the chat room, although, as usual, BBC Teletext beat Camelot to the full results by some 15 minutes.

• Saturday 15th June
  A 3-0 win for England against Denmark in the soccer World Cup was wrecked by a pointlessly long 45 minute lottery show (and they did 2 of the 3 draws with only 3 minutes left of the show to go !). Had the chat room applet "stick" on me (wouldn't accept text input) right in the middle of the main draw's ball coming out, so I just did the Web update live instead and typed the sorted numbers out manually (cos the Extra draw was imminent). Camelot were their usual slow selves (about 45 minutes to issue the full results), but they issued them about the same time as BBC teletext updated.

• Wednesday 12th June
  England soccer team qualifying for the World Cup second round and a five minute lottery TV show - what more could a person want ? Well, Camelot's phone line could stop being beaten by BBC teletext by more than 10 minutes like tonight for one thing :-) No problems with the live TV show commentary and draw in the chat room, which was moderately busy (no evening World Cup matches [UK time] helps...).

• Saturday 8th June
  As usual, it was a tortuous 45-minute quiz show with the first draw taking place almost 30 minutes into the show. The chat room was moderately busy for the live TV show commentary and draw, which went OK. Camelot took a ridiculous age (some 90 minutes after the draw) to get the full results - about 20 minutes after BBC teletext had put them up.

• Wednesday 5th June
  No problems doing the live draw in the chat room tonight (it was only a 5 minute show after all) and Camelot were actually reasonably quick issuing the full results (less than 35 minutes after the draw). Sadly, they still were beaten to them by a few minutes by BBC teletext.

• Saturday 1st June
  Not only were Camelot very late with the full results (something like 90 minutes after the draw), but the BBC TV failed to show the Extra Lotto draw live - they just showned a caption of the Extra balls in sorted order. Yes, I've complained to Camelot about this on the phone line.

  No problems with the live TV show commentary and the lottery draw instead the chatroom.

Previous month: May 2002

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