Text on Text

The very handy upload image feature of blogger means Hello! is now pretty defucnt. The picture sharing device not the magazine. Though it probably should be. After all E-Mail is far easier way to share pictures with your friends. After that quick anti-advetisment I'll show you what I uploaded. Below is Gamestations deatails of it's "restructuring," The toned down goodbye from DVD news( the first was quite personal and had a sense of underlying anger) were I find out that his name is William Gallagher. In an additional snap, you'll notice that the Music pages(entitled Music Index, cool man) now only carry one album review, they prievously held between 2-4 album reviews and 4-7 single reviews. Thats lasted two weeks and theres been no explanation yet. Hopefully just temporary although since there is not only reorganizing but revamping and restrucuring going on in the entertainment section that's probably not the case.

Politics and teletext combine today. Exciting isn't it? I admit there two subjects unloved by most people but for you exceptions( which means your an exceptional person) I've posted a link to a the most recent statement about the digital swichover. Don't want to read it? Heres the jist. Their making "great progress." Some companies use their crappy logo. Really, cause I've never seen it. Anyone got it? 62% of homes are "enjoying" digital televison. Presumably they asked each one in person. While non-for-profit organization(The more times they say that the more suspicous I get) SwichCo, is ,er, exsisting. I knew that sevral months ago but I guess MP's find it hard to keep up with their own actions.

It's also another occasion where New Labours fabled spinning machine(not the wheel, were starting to get used to it) has let us down a bit. SwichCo. Saying that the two capitals is very New Labour. "No laws apply to us,be they grammer or international.It's also dull but trying to be interesting.

I havn't actually mentioned teletext yet. In fact since theres very few regular readers I should explain the reason I'm talking about the digital swichover is because it will spell the end of teletext(between 08-12 now. A four year margin of error?).I have to apogize for an error of my own in my last post. I claimed that the C4 text's gaming pages were called Gamestation. The same name as the ceefax service. They most certainly are not. There called the at-least-a-couple-of-letters different Gamecentral. 4 letters I count. Theres a simlar amount of animostity between them as there is between the 'Ziners and the Backchatters. C4 text is genrally more for hardcore gamers and letter writers. Bet you didn't think you could right hardcore letters?

Ceefax.tv is working again so some pictures should soon be forthcoming. Everyone should vist that site by the way. Even if your only here be accident. Everyone is. If you can't be arsed typing theres a link at the side.

For some reason everything a write is gianormas so I can't tell how much I've wrote. Most people would say one line is enough though so I'll sign off.Check for pictures soon. In fact I just found one I never put up though meant too. It was around page 700 shortly before the new motoring section appeared on C4 so it's probably some sort of test page. I'm sure it;s very are and vauble in an acution so this is very generous of me. Not really but still it's quite interesting.

"Revamping" and "Reorganizing" the entertainment section seems to be de rigor on teletext recently. Closley following the changes at ITV and C4 Ceefax have out done the irriatatingly named Teletext company. As I explained before the words revamp and reorganize really should have another meaning added to the dictionairy which could be something like the removal of things that cost a bit too much. The pages in question are two of the more interesting. The DVD news/review page was very useful and informative to people like me who don't really live near anywere that sells DVD's. It was pretty well written too by somebody gallagher. Indeed he continues to write it on-line somewhere. If I find the adress I'll link it. His goodbye was a page long and probably a touch twee. He did mention "budget restrictions though" which is the closest to an admisson that there is no reorganizing or revamping going on(It would require something to replace it) that you'll likley to get from someone who still works for Ceefax. Indeed I don't really see how cutting the news/reviews page will do anything, fiscal or otherwise, as Somebody(Maybe David) Gallagher will still be employed to review films. Maybe they get to pay him less.

The other causlty of this mini-cull(Only a double murder really) is the games questions. Usually my fourth or fifth port of call when turning on Ceefax. It was annoyingly merged a few years so that it shares it's pages with games news so it often ended up seven or eight sub-pages long. The goodbye there was alot less sentimental than Somebody Gallagher's. Restricted to one sentence in fact. I nearly felt cheated. The news section is not being dropped, by the way. I often felt the news wa just random speculation taken of the internet and was often pretty dull to read. Then again not owning a gaming console since the SEGA Megadrive maybe it wasn't for me. I think thats why I liked the Games Questions section more. It was nearly constantly off-topic. Most letters asked the guy, David Gibbon, where they could get free spyware protection, what was wrong with their computer and why films won't play in their American PSP(not sure what that is, just that everyone's talking about. think it's a muntant I-Pod/Gameboy crossbread. Still it was excellent in it's way. The gaming reviews are being cut from two pages to one though is could be seen as a genuine revamp as the second page is being replaced with a Gaming Colum. What does that entail. God knows, or at least David Gibbon.

There is a liklhood that neither know actually. God has bigger fish to fry and David Gibbon is actually leaving Gamestation after a pretty-damm-long-in-the-field-of-journalism eight years. A big enough deal considering he seems to be the "stations" only writer/employee. It's very hard to sum up a game in 70 words and give the review humor and readability at the same time but he done it well. Some of the questions were pretty braindead,even to me and I write a blog about teletext, the internet of the past. And the only reason I don't have a website proper is because they look much too complicated. My point was the questions were always very politley and helpfully answered. It may come to the point where my first port of call for Games related, um, stuff will be the Channel four teletext equivlent of Ceefax's Gamestation. Which is of course entitled.........Gamestation. Origina;ity not as important as it once was ,eh? It comes with more detail but is really for hardcore gamers that I can't really count myself in as tomorrow I plan to sell around a quater of my collection. I also never buy new games and download a hell of alot free games of websites.

Ceefax.tv is playing up at the minute so I might not be able to get pictures of the gamestation goodbyes until tomorrow. I ahsten to use my phone to e-mail pictures again as last time they were lost in transit. But I might give t a go if Ceefax.Tv doesn't repair itself by tomorrow. Maybe the evil BBC have had their wicked way with it. Another rather unimportant thing that has happened in the life of me and blog is i've decided to increase my google alerts to include some other key words. "Teletext" tends to get excited lottery winners and lower league sportmen.

All this talk og games put me in mind of the true games master himself though. Making what may be his third apperance on this site is the irrepresispal Bamber Boozler!

I've been on holiday for the last few weeks so appear to have missed the grand opening of ITV's new digital teletext service. It certainly kicks the preverbial crap out of it's channel four's digital service. Which doesn't make much sense considering they are created by the same company. Channel Four have had their Teletext(brand) provided teletext sevice for a couple of years without any noticabel updates. Where it has a cluttered and confusing layout of pale not-very-contrasting colours ITV has more reconizable Teletext colours. Dark blue, green and black with only a few pale colours. It also manages to be much quicker than it's channel four equivlent. It even has simlar numbers to it's old anolouge equivlent. May be the best digital teletext system around. BBC i repulses me for sevral reasons. It's pushy. If I want to read music reviews I have to listen to some ditsy bitch babble on about celebrities or watch clips of last weekends causualty and interviews with some Eastenders cast members. Why? God knows. It seems to know exactly what I want even more than me. The other reason is the very fact it's called BBC i. It has ideas above it's station. It avoided in label of teletext, digital teletext or even the legendary label of Ceefax. This is despite the fact the vast majorty of users will be pressing a button that says text to access it.

I must admit it's a decent service though as most of the content is written for Ceefax and copied onto BBC i. Of course Ceefax is still quicker at updating. ITV's digital Teletext seems to work the same way. So though I havn't used it that much yet I'm pretty impressed. If I were to give it at least a provisional mark it would be 7.5/10. You may wonder if that means I think it's even better than traditional teletext. Put simply, no it does not. Traditional teletext still has the edge it flexability, ease of access and on the most part, speed.

This launch does mean that every terrestail station in the UK (bar Five which still can not be recieved through vast swaifs of the country on anolouge, including my own little hovel) has a digital teletext service as well as an anolouge one. I'm not sure that actually means anything apart from more things to look at for my blog. Eventully it may cause a decline in the standards of anolouge teletext due to lack of advertising and viewer interest. Indeed it could even spell the end for traditional anolouge teletext services before the anologe signal swich-off, sheculded for compleation in 2012.

Ultimatley I beleive all digital text currently lacks the depth, charm and soul that makes the traditional teletext intersting and special but a little more focus on teletext can only be a good thing, can't it?

Teletext feature of the day-News Flash-Page 150 on Ceefax,302 on ITV and 102 on channel four
With the events of recent days in London and other UK cities meant services like this have been very important and informative. With alot of rumors flying around a few sentecnces of solid facts are all that are really needed.


PS: Hopefully some pictures of ITV digital text later.