The National Lottery: Break The Safe

There is a YouTube video of the Thunderball incident, and you can see the machine detects a ball hasn't been drawn, so it releases the ball flap, mixes the balls like at the start of the draw, and reattempts to draw a ball. I seem to remember the incident was caused by the air being set too fast, so no ball could settle in the selector pole.


Well I'm not sure how that relates to fixing the lottery.

And even though this isn't related to the machines, who could forget the night of Eurovision in 2006 when a colossal disruption occurred by some certain protesters meaning some very desperate rushing to make sure they hit 8pm and explains the fact why the draws were swiftly moved away from the audience a year or two later.

It was said somewhere that because the drawmaster doesn't have an earpiece, the pressing of the big red button serves as an obvious cue for them to start the draw.

For a while they actually had to explicity say "Please start the draw!", and that's presumably because there was a draw a few years back when the drawmaster got a bit confused and started the balls coming out when the presenter and guest (it was Craig David, I recall) were still doing their banter, and Deadly had to interrupt them, saying "I'm sorry, but the draw has already started!". So they actually had to verbally cue it in after that.

Here's a Bob Monkhouse incident.

Note the gap where the numbers are meant to be under the credits and above the Ceefax number.

Just reminds of just how good Monkhouse was.

Yeah that's the one I was referring to...

I hadn't realised that Alan was still voicing the Wednesday and Friday draws now they are shown on the web only.

He obviously isn't doing them live though as there is no more of the number facts he used to do, and they are splicing together pre recorded voice clips, railway station announcement style.

Yeah, he's clearly recorded all the numbers.

Three things from that

Funny how 'big' the lottery draws used to be

Weird how the announcer just says that the lottery is coming up in 50 mins, as if that's a normally scheduled programme

And lastly, imagine the lottery being simulcast on Radio 1 thesedays!

Yes, we saw something similar at the National Lottery awards, the first time in age the draw has come from outside it's regular studio and in front a of live studio audience.

Yes, it moved to 5Live later, but even that would seem odd now.

Pretty sure the radio simulcast was later shifted to Radio 5.

With regards to the announcement, having found a schedule from November 16th, 1996, two weeks prior to the video above with Bob Monkhouse, the National Lottery Update that week followed the main news which was directly after Casualty so it would have probably been a similar story two weeks later and then just as easy at the time to go straight back to the draw and then into the news which I presume would have followed without too much schedule disruption.

I guess "I know I'm a jerk - but please let it work" was the following week then.

Ah yes remembered for Eamonn Holmes laughing and hiding like a scared schoolboy whilst Sarah and Alan try to carry on professionally.