- Friday 31st December
Well, Big Draw 2000 Game 1 was a mess-up - started 12 minutes late, the machine
got stuck inbetween the two halves of a split video wall, Alan Dedicoat
initially read the fourth ball's number out wrong (but did correct himself) and
to top it all off, the Camelot phone line is shut down between 11.00pm tonight
and 9.00am tomorrow morning and the full results of either game won't be
released until then, which is crazy !
I don't have a results data file or any ticket checker for either
of the Big Draw 2000 games (no point because they're one-offs),
but I've added a full results page today in the same style as the
individual lottery pages (albeit manually constructed, groan !).
Added an oversized-font link to it on the home page so that people
can jump the results page easily (I'd rather have the info on a
separate page than clutter up the home page even more than usual).
- Wednesday 29th December
The lottery show was surprisingly brief tonight - it started late and lasted
only about 3 minutes in total ! The chat room actually had some people in
for the draw (though there always seems to be more people in 10 minutes
afterwards than there are for the draw itself...) and my live TV show
commentary and draw went OK. I was the first to put up the full results.
- Friday 24th December
It was unsurprisingly quiet in the lottery chat room tonight -
a combination of the first ever Friday UK lottery draw, a
"non-weekday" draw time (7.58pm) and, of course, Christmas
Eve meant that no-one at all saw the Thunderball draw in the
chat room !
It was a little busier during the main draw itself, but only
a few hardy souls ventured in. Amusingly, just as I was
getting the full results through from Camelot about 45 minutes
after the draw, a bunch of people came into the chat room,
probably thinking the draw was around 9pm or something !
- Thursday 23rd December
Bought two more tickets for tomorrow's rollover draw.
- Wednesday 22nd December
The chat room was fairly quiet during the TV show, but more
people came in just before the draw was about to start
(and promptly left afterwards). The live TV show commentary
and draw went fine, although BBC 1's lottery update beat
Camelot's phone line to announcing that there was no jackpot
winner.
- Tuesday 21st December
Bought one Big Draw 2000 ticket today (couldn't get it from
W.H. Smith's because they amazingly had no playslips available !).
I just added "19" in front of my 6 numbers for my first normal
lottery ticket (yes, that means nothing from 1950 onwards, but
I reckon a lot of people will use birthyears, so I'll avoid them :-) ).
- Saturday 18th December
It's getting quieter and quieter in the first half of the 55 minute marathon that is
Saturday's dreadful Lulu-driven Red Alert lottery show. Only the odd drifter or
two came in until just before the Thunderball draw when several more people joined in
the "excitement". The live TV show commentary and draw went fine and I was the first
to put up the full results too.
- Wednesday 15th December
I actually had to restart the lottery room about 10 minutes prior to the
TV show (it was playing up a bit) and I was surprised to see about 4 people
immediately join, including someone from Nairobi, Kenya ! The TV show
live commentary and draw went fine, although I had to get someone else off
the phone in my house before I could phone Camelot. They had the full
results the first time I phoned and I put them up before anyone else.
- Saturday 11th December
The chat room was quiet as usual for the first half of the
over-long Red Alert TV show, but people drifted in as
the show approached the rollover draw. The live TV show
commentary and draws went fine, but Camelot took an age
(actually until their "official" time of 9.30pm !) to release
the full results.
When they did release them, my formula checker immediately
spotted a £1 discrepancy in the individual jackpot prize,
which I later confirmed by manual calculations (it was someone
at Camelot rounding up a 99p value, when they were supposed to
round it down). As well as reporting the problem to Camelot,
I spent quite a time talking to "David" on the Camelot phone
line as we discussed a lot of things lottery-related (well,
I have no life on a Saturday night and obviously David doesn't
either :-) ).
- Thursday 9th December
Bought two more tickets for Saturday's rollover. Also spotted a
free Big Draw 2000 "gift wallet" in W.H. Smith, which you slip in a
Big Draw 2000 ticket into and give it as a Christmas present.
- Wednesday 8th December
It was fairly quiet in the chat room tonight - only a few stragglers
came in just before the draw. The live draw and commentary went fine
and, after updating the pages, I went off to watch the European
football on ITV (Manchester United won 3-0) like I suspect everyone
else was doing. I updated the pages with the full results
quicker than anyone else though, despite the TV interlude.
- Saturday 5th December
As seems to be usual on the ridiculously long journey that is the 55 minutes
of the Saturday lottery show, only the odd soul strayed into the chat room
in the first half, although it certainly picked up in the second half.
The live TV show commentary and draw went fine and I was the first to put
up the full results, even though the Thunderball results were delayed an extra
10 minutes compared to the main lottery results.
- Wednesday 1st December
The chat room was reasonably busy tonight and the live draw
and commentary went fine - a couple of the "usual suspects",
who like to cause a bit of mischief, didn't turn up.
I put up the full results before anyone else.
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