Text on Text

Teletext Ends:A quick look at the corpse

2009-12-12T18:14:00.000-08:00

Now at some point I can't quite recall I decided to abandon this particular waste of internet until the actual demise of teletext; after all there's only so much wistful writing you can do about the demise of teletext without it actually happening. And I was fairly confident no-one was too likely to usurp the market. And if they did good luck to them. Frankly reading back these pages disturbs me, and I can't help thinking I was a very odd, angry youngster direly in end of a hobby and/or an editor. Perhaps a slap round the head.

In any case, what can be gleaned from this frightening puesdo-diary is that I was always assosiated the demise of teletext with the demise of anolouge TV. So imagine the horror when, I think it was in earlyNovember, Teletext informed the nation it was to cease broadcasting in Janurary 2010. Well maybe the horror didn't quite have the impact they desired because they came back a couple of weeks later with the news Teletext shall cease on the 14th of December-AKA tomorrow!

Just to clear up any confusion caused by the arrogent franchaise naming, 'Teletext Ltd' which provides services the ITV, Channel Four and Five is what is closing down. Ceefax, a more asture, less colourful and much slimmed down beast than in its glory days, shall linger on. Teletext explain the demise of their service in terms sacerly more complicated than mine-it didn't make any money any more. They wanted more spectrum room (whatever that means; for all my admiration of teletext the technical stuff somewhat escaped me. I know its transmitted on spare lines. Or something) for advertising and didn't get it. Of course Teletext is part of a wider media group which probably isn't doing all that well either, what with the recession, no-one reading papers anymore (I do and know lots of people who do but the TV and indeed the papers keep telling me no-one does, which seems self-defeating on the latters part) and thus a lack of in advertising, the least profitable and most despensible part of that media group. Now to me the prospect sacraficing teletext in order to keep the owners of the Daily Mail exceedingly wealthy seems, shall we say, a slightly unsettling conception of priorities. Or more figuraitivly, akin to barbacuing golden-furred kittens to feed to a slightly peckish Nick Griffin.

Business, I can only presume is however, business. And you can understand companies no longer really desiring to advertise their product in blocky kitch eighties graphics. For whatever reason Teletext never became the fashionable counter-culture phenomenon it could have. Where are the Bamber Boozler T-shirts? Or special DVD's? And why do not I see 'All hail Cedric the dragon!' scrawled upon the walls of my university? And where the public-art demonstrations of those slightly overly self-aware zany mega-ziners? To be positive, Teletext maintained a true cult following, rather than one of those things which everyone knows about and sort of likes but is always referred to as a cult phenomneon. Like, lets say, The Flaming Lips.

I should also point it is not the case, as I first presumed, that the unlovably ugly digital Teletext will remain whilst fraily charming anolouge shall be turned off. No, its the whole thing, gone on a date defined as '14/15' of December. It is generally referred to as 'news and editoral content' closing but as far as I can understand, this contains anything that could possibly be written upon teletext. Or anything else. All that will remain will be Teletext Holidays, which now has its own Sky Digital channel anyway.

So no more planet sound, by far the best music magazine online or in, er, magazine, despite having to deal with a constantly reduced number of pages. No more Gamecentral (although actually that is supposed to be carrying on online somewhere), a feature I read regularly despite having almost no interest in the content. No more Bamboozle, unquestionably the hardest quiz on television. Show me someone who achieved the top strangly punning catogory of correct anwser and I'll show you a dammable liar. No more teletexts, in which various crackpots and the odd sensible person give their opinions on everything and anything. Similarly, no more Vortex, the mysteriously named forum on film and its TV equivlent which was amazingly critical of almost everything.

As you can tell, I find the 'write in' bits of Teletext the most appealing. Teletext appeals to such a strangely diverse demographic that can not be replicated. Everyone (well a lot of people: for most of the time I was writing this blog, whisper it softly, I didn't have regular access to teletext) can use Teletext, so it is restricted only to those who choose to. And have the time. Dear Ceefax, the BBC letter's page could be made into a sersis called Britain's Angrist Pensioners. I've written in once or twice, not to Ceefax but the Void, Planet Sound's music forum, but more to see my material printed on teletext than any desire to discuss musical matters with the likes of DJ Gordy or Tyler Durden (no offence to them, they were just the two regular names which came to mind, which is much more a compliment).

The media's famously navel-gazing when it comes to pondering its own signifigance and I do wonder how the passing of Teletext will be treated. Its not really the end of an era though, its the end of Teletext, which is much, much worse.

Page(s) of the (final) day- p105-109-Teletext farewell features
Delightful collection of pieces about teletext, including a Digistiser retrospective and a special Bamber Boozler quiz on Teletext itself! Hopefully I'll be able to write a quick overview of all the final day content, but I encourage all to go and have one last look themselves. Much of the content is published in the internet now if (like me) your TV reception is tempremental, although it really isn't the same. Happy teletexting!

teleteXtmas

2007-12-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

Managed to find the teletext advent calender this year, but neglected to mention it here until to Christmas Eve, apologies. It's page 696 on channel four-I think- for anyone who wants a quick last look. Not too much other festive teletext news, other than to say poor weather has moved my aerial and made it difficult to actually read the thing. The curious advertisement for "a letter from Santa" that I've only ever seen on teletext has reappeared this year, which pleases me. Along with big, colourful, blocky Santa of course.

Slightly creepy fat men aside, there has been a few other noteworthy, if not seasonal, happenings in the expansive yet inexpensive world of teletext since my last post. One that popped up through my Google alerts system informs me of RTE's Artel winning a technology award!Sort of. RTE actually won the award for its mobile WAP services which reproduce teletext on your mobile. This can also be done through a link on the ceefax.tv site, which also offers Ceefax funny enough. While it may be more deserving of the award, however, RTE's offering is on safer legal ground so was always the more likely recipient of the no doubt prestigious Irish Internet Association Net Visionary 2007 Award for Mobile Internet. Well if prestigious means long it certainly is. It has 300'000 impressions a month, which doesn't sound too impressive. Its far less than actual Artel or Ceefax usage and when you consider how many impressions one user is likely to make a month (probably quite a few as its a useful service used right) you have to wonder how many users there are. But Ireland is a small country and not too many people are au fait with their mobiles to the degree they can access teletext via the bleepy device.

It is interesting RTE have simply decided to use their teletext service for their WAP services. For all the fuss made of WAP when it first came out, it has far, far more in common with teletext than the internet. It has improved over the last few years, but its largely been usurped by (at least near) actual internet on mobiles. I remember the first time I used WAP services on a phone around 2002, it was like a very slow proto-type teletext. Colourless with very little information and a fidgety control system, entirely devoid of graphics.

If you can drag yourself away from the presumably annul IIANVAMIes (eye-ian-famies), there was another surprising new fangled addition to the bloated Teletext franchise this month. Teletext Extra is Teletext Ltd's EPG( Electronic Programme Guide). That may have been a sentence with lot of capitals but its not actually all that interesting a story. An EPG is essentially an onscreen TV book, telling you whats on when, what its about, when its on again and probably allowing you to set reminders. If you have SKY or Virgin TV or something, you'll be familiar with the one they gave you most likely. In fact I'm not sure how or what you would install Teletext's offering. But anyway, why does it deserve the hallowed moniker Teletext, you may ask. Well, alot of things do these days according to the owner of that particular upper-case word, but there is some logic behind it. Teletext EPG combines the traditional role of an EPG (as outlined above) with the traditional role of classic teletext, providing information on a range of subjects. I'm afraid this was quite a long paragraph on an innovation that probably doesn't deserve even that increasingly worthless moniker. Did we really have that much trouble switching between the EPG and teletext previously? Maybe we did and I've forgotten, must be it. Before we get too cynical and Orwellian , though, we should acknowledge it will be nice to see teletext survive in some form in the digital age.

A quick charitible note, you can find the Christmas Family Appeal on page 178. Probably over by now actually but if your feeling guilty about your Christmas spending there's all sorts of charitable organizations lurking around teletext. Anyway, a Merry Christmas to all appreciate the quaint majesty of teletext, oh and gosh darn it, even those who don't.

Teletext inspired chaos

2007-10-30T07:08:00.000-07:00

Oddly enough this was something I was wondering today, wouldn't be it awful on confusing if you had to get a plane the night the clocks went back? For non-UK readers, the slightly archaic practise of putting the clocks back an hour so farmers and other morning people can work in the light persists here. And it happened this Sunday. The actual change comes at 3AM in order to minimize disruption, though of course the aeroplanes are still flying. You can understand how confusing that would be, say, around half two. Have you missed your 2:15 flight or is it in 45 minutes at the 'next' 2:15? Anyway you'd assume there is some flawless procedure to prevent such confusion. Gatwick airport decided instead, however, to heighten it.

Apparently a "glitch" meant that the clocks weren't set back at all in Gatwick. This meant all flights were displayed as an hour late. And just inside Gatwick, Gatwick's information is send directly to Ceefax and Teletext for display as well as there own website. See there's the tenuous link to teletext. Considering most people still use it to check on aeronautical comings and goings it no doubt did cause serious disruption, or at least muddled confusion.

Technological types are speculating that the computer's clock was simply set to the wrong country, therefore didn't know about daylight saving time. Seems too simple but I suppose you should never overestimate the competence of management or underestimate the laziness of workers.

Digital swichover

2007-10-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

Or analogue switch off. Whatever you call it, for this blog's purposes, it's the traditional style teletext switch off. And it begins tomorrow morning in Whitehaven. Well, it only sort of does. BBC2 is the only channel going off the terrestrial air tomorrow, the rest being removed later in the month. Now as far as I'm aware, there is no difference between the BBC2 Ceefax service and the BBC1 version, certainly it's minimal if there is. I think there used to be a few extra pages on BBC1 but think it's pretty much the same now. So in truth, no teletext is being removed tomorrow morning. By the 14th of next month, certainly all forms of traditional teletext and, arguably more significantly, the channels that carry them will be off the air. By 2012 the whole of the UK will be switched over. Will be interesting to see how long channels bother to maintain a traditional teletext service. As London is one of the last areas to switch over they should be reasonably well maintained, housing a fifth of the country's population should be enough to keep planet sound updated regularly anyway.

Apparently the main feature of Whitehaven which makes it such a good test switchover candidate is that it currently has terrible analogue reception. As you know, bad reception=no teletext, or at least very hard to read and navigate teletext. So perhaps Whitehaven, now no doubt to be immortalised in pub quizzes, is a bit of a false dawn for the Death of Teletext. That's right capitals. Even if it is, however, the major switchover's begin in the later part of next year. The large "Border" region is the first to go with a few others following in 2009. So I suppose a false dawn only indicates the real one.

33 years on

2007-09-24T13:32:00.000-07:00

Yesterday marked the 33rd birthday of Ceefax, and therefore, the 33rd birthday of Teletext itself, Ceefax being the proto-teletext service. So let everyone celebrate. A canandian news release informed me of that funny enough.

Last time I posted a promised an immenient report on Ceefax's rejigged entertainment index. I then didn't post anything for a month, the reason being this was the most utterly banal update your likley to see. Quizes have been merged and theres fewer interviews and features but there is still generally one review for an album/ game/ film. And it's called Entertainment Extra, what it is 'extra' to is left to the readers imganination.

Piece of entertainment page purging from the other channels, quite old news really but just realised I never mentioned it here. Channel Four teletext have removed of their sub-page heavy 'tours and gigs' section along with cinema listings. Admittly trawling through sixty odd sub pages to check if and when your favorite band was playing was far from time efficenent. However, on those long sleepless nights it is suitably hypnotic. The local night out/music pages are, as of a few weeks ago, still there. They are actully quite useful, as it gives the dates and times of smaller places gigs and preformances, listed by city. Although also slow, you'd struggle to find a more concise database of local entertainement all in one place. Most of these should be moved to digital text, but despite promises I've yet to see the tours pages on channel four's digital teletext service.

On "teletext cultural reference watch" (it could be thing, though isn't) the credits for The Most Annoying TV We Love To Hate (sounds shit and it wasn't great) were displayed in a ceefax format. Only partly makes up for their glaring obmission from the programme proper. What is more derided, has a bigger cult/waster following? There probably are examples teletext remains top twenty at least! Even the title allows for it's inclusion, top TV not TV programmes. Perhaps the next pointless list show...

Home and away

2007-07-10T13:46:00.000-07:00

Ceefax entertainment section is undergoing another change tonight. A section called Entertainment extra is due to "replace" the Gamestation, Music, Film, Daily Quiz,charts and Have Your Say pages. How precisly this vaugly named section will replace these very different pages is questionable. If they were simply to be incoperated into this section, presumably moved would be better wording. My bet would be on ten pages that have on various days a review or two of each kind, probably not Games as I can't imagine it gets a high readership. Quiz and charts will probably remain as they are easy enough to maintain. Couple of interviews will probably be thrown in to but on the whole it'll most likely to be a bit of a downgrading. We won't have to wait too long before it is clear though as the changes come into effect tomorrow. I considered delaying my post til then but you gotta create some suspense.

Got an interesting teletext article through my google alerts yesterday about Teletext in Nigeria. Admittedly it had the tone of an advertisement more than a genuine article but was keen to impress how this apparently recent introduction has been a success. The ability to access news at any point has been particularly appreciated. It has been used for education and while the article doesn't go into specifics this is surely a good thing and a very innovative idea. Run by Tgmedia, teletext apparently has attracted lots of interest amongst the Nigerian public and it is expected to be quickly expanded. even into a blackberry service. Parts of it are aimed towards the sizable illiterate population of Nigeria, again I don't know specifics of how that works but it is a clever idea at least.

So another update on Ceefax tomorrow and perhaps even what is surely the key issue of our age, Nigerian Teletext.

Text On Text gives news on news on text

2007-06-24T12:12:00.000-07:00

I remember a statistic a few years ago that said sport pages were actually more popular than news pages on teletext. This doesn't really surprise me. Most teletext services devote about 100 pages to sport. Consider that in comparison to TV, were sport will get five minutes at the end of the news, alot of which is eaten up by an egomaniac "bantering" at the camera and anchorpersons. Even newspapers, good ones anyway, give comparatively little credence to sport as a subject. When you consider news, however, the BBC actually uses the first three paragraphs of it's web reports for Ceefax. Which can lead to some incomplete stories, although to be fair, that seems to be less of a problem than it used to be. Anyway the point is, teletext can't really be said to offer a more complete news service than the TV or papers. Though I would argue at certain points when one story (celebrity death, election etc) monopolises the aforementioned mediums, teletext comes into it's own as it can deal with these subjects and many more.

Largely though, unless I was pressed for time, teletext wouldn't be my main news source. Artel is a prime example of why this should be. I know they are an Irish service but their coverage of Gordon Brown taking power was extremely basic. "Brown to take over UK labour post," actually been known for several weeks now, some would say years. Actually, it's a bit of a nothing story but it highlights how little detail you are likely to get in just 60-odd words. Much of the time reading the headlines is just as informative as heading the article. As I said, very convenient if your in a rush but I would still wouldn't recommend it as primary news source.

Sport on the other hand, doesn't really need massive depth. It can be well covered in 100-odd pages. It can also cover the more unglamorous sports that generally get overlooked on the news except on the big occasions, eg tennis and Wimbledon, golf and Ryder Cup. It's also probably the section that comes closest to being the "electronic magazine" teletext was often branded as. Someone with a general interest in sport could probably happily waste an hour or so flicking through the entire section. Whilst it does offer quite alot of news, alot of sport, especially football, is rumour and conjecture. For what are undoubtedly serious socio-physcological reasons, that is much more interesting than bare fact. But largely opinion and news, even rumoured news, are kept separate.

Teletext (the company which provides ITV and chanel fours teletext services) has often been accused of right-wing bias in terms of news. I can't really say I've noticed this. It's fairly hard to insert bias in a 60 word article. I would perhaps concede that more right-wing issues are covered. It's not nearly as bad as the sensationalist tribe you get on ITV television news mind you. They probably do play to their audience a little though, which contains a high proportion of conservative pensioners. I wouldn't say they are the majority, not least because it scares me a little, but they seem to be ones who vote in the polls and phone in their opinions. They bring in the bacon so to speak, or mow in the moolah to be ether more or less tabloidy.I'm not sure.

Apart from aforementioned problems with the internet link, ceefax news is rather good for news, although not nearly as good as the BBC website which seems to have stored every article written since the millennium. On Ceefax I would recommend the Sci-Tech News on page 154. Alot of stories that should be on the front page of newspapers, but the potential cure for cancer isn't important because it doesn't involve a dead royal or a much hated Prime Minister. There is also about 20 different news stories on view at any one time which is useful in times of one-story televised news, an increasingly common occurrence. The In-Depth section also provides an answer to my own above criticism that you can't get much detail into tiny little teletext articles. "The Ceefax Files" they are called. Seems a little light-hearted when it's about the London bombings or a misssing toddler but a bit of humour is needed in the news sometimes. Not morning-news bantery humour mind, but something along these lines. Ceefax is sometimes accused of a left-wing bias, but that's because thanks to FOX news, those on the right-wing think everyone is out to get them. They aren't wrong, it's just everyone is lying about Iraq, Afghanistan, corruption and incompetence. Or at least they are reporting it when they shouldn't, that's a favorite of Bill O'Reily, which is both amusing to hear from a journalist and depressing that so many watch and believe him.

Veering back on topic, there is wholly separate entertainment news on Ceefax. It exists on the Teletext services too, but is generally split up into music, film and theatre news rather than being nicely clumped together. It covers a rather wide variety of stories in reality. It seems to make an effort to be different from your average celebrity gossip monger style. So we get alot of news on dead composers and opera singers. Well news of their deaths, typically afterwards there isn't much news about them. Celebrities in court is another favorite. George Micheal and Pete Doherty being the luckiest to grace to pages most often. This has attacted some critcism, as death and celebrity crime shouldn't be judged as entertaining news. But that is misconstruing the point and ,well, changing the title. Entertainment news doesn't mean news for your entertainment, it means the news of people in the entertainment industry. If it were the former, it would be a dismal failure as many of the stories are rather dry. In the role of the latter, however, it can be judged a success and does provide a service. It should really be judged as an extension of the news service, not the news part of the entertainment section. Of course the placing of it, at p501, at the start of the entertainment pages contradicts this.

So is teletext is a good news? Well, with a slightly unconventional analogy I would say it's a bit like a massive table that sits only two inches below the roof. You can put alot on the table, but not much of it. You might not eat your dinner of it but you can keep the crisps there. If your looking for another wide but shallow analogy, may I suggest Beth Ditto.

Artel turns 20

2007-06-24T11:30:00.000-07:00

The RTE teletext service, Artel celebrates it's 20th anniversary today. Marketed as an "electronic newspaper" upon it's conception, that is largely what it is. It terms of style it's very similar to Ceefax. Frankly, I rarely use it because I don't get it on my TV but it is well packaged onto the internet by RTE. If I don't already have a link to it I will post one shortly. It does seem to be slightly more limited graphically in terms of how many colours and backgrounds. In that way it's quite similar to UK teletext ten years ago as it also has a greater depth of service than Teletext or Ceefax. Perhaps, and I do mean perhaps as this may not be accurate, this is because RTE doesn't have an equivalent digital service to maintain. In fact Artel is still carried on RTE's sky service, though it doesn't always work that well.

According to the article from which I found this out (I was going pretend I counted the days but...) Artel is used daily by one in five people. I'm not aware of the corresponding UK figures but that seems pretty high for only people who use it daily. Especially when you consider there is a good number of people who, despite it's total simplicity, are mightily confused by teletext of all kinds. Not even necessarily old people, in fact they use it more than most. If you've ever read the letters pages on teletext, pensions are quite the hot topic. Very few think they are too high.

Although probably a similar proportion of people have Sky or some similar service in the RoI as in the UK, you do get a sense Artel is a bit more widely used than Ceefax and certainly more valued. So congratulations to it on it's 20th birthday. There are currently no plans in the Republic for a terrestrial switch off so it may well outlast the 30 something Ceefax!

Text in mid 2007

2007-05-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well, nothing has really happened in the world of teletext since my last post. Which is quite something considering it's been almost half a year.

Actully, that's not strictly accurate. A few minor occurences spring to mind. Teletext and Teletext Holidays have merged, leading to loss of forty jobs. To those forty people, that is rather major news I suppose. To me, it just suggests the continuing shift away from the old-style teletext. It will be strange in a couple of years when teletext holidays no longer is brodcast on teletext. This nugget of information was brought to my attention by Google alerts. Useful little things, though about 90% of them are about people who found out they won the lottery by looking on teletext and football managers talking about their teams league posistions. What does that tell us? Quite alot of people still use teletext for stuff like lottery results and teletext is part of our collective sporting venacular.

This was evident in the recent Cricket World Cup. Teletext enjoyed a bit of a revival. With no live coverage on terrestial television, teletext became the primary medium for keeping up to date for the huddled SkySportsless masses. Cricket has always suited teletext coverage anyway. It's about as exciting reading on teletext as actully watching it and it moves at the slowest of paces. It is also statistic heavy, if your watching a match live you might not have a clue whats going on for a few minutes as little bubbles and bars pop up telling you various aspects of the score and situation. With teletext you can fit it all in one screen, two at the most.

Something I noticed myself, Mega-Zine had what I assume was an accidental, brief return on teletext! Of course, it's still on digital teletext. Well, I assume it is, I never use it because-as I may have mentioned-it's shite. Anyway, when trying to read the Planet Sound news (p341 on c4) I instead found 8 pages of a classic Mega-Zine. Was removed a couple of hours later and alas I never got a picture.

Ten Things We Didn't Know Last Week (probably don't all need capitals) pulication on ceefax seems to have ceased, alough it was always a touch irregular. It can still be found on BBCi. Would it really cost that much to put it on a vacant Ceefax page as well? Certainly no more than the salaray of the throughly enjoyment free Chris Moyles. Read about his rant againist David Gest this week. Isn't it great when you get an egomaniac with absolutly nothing to be proud of? How many sad little campagins has he started? Honestly, does he go home and night thinking "I am the kingmaker, i raise up Peter Andre and destroy David Gest whilst making a mild differtence to the charts."

Yes, not strictly to do with teletext, but the world seems to for some reason listen to this person (I think because Radio One is the easist to get a signal for) and does irk me.

Anyway, I doubt much will be happening too soon in the world of teletext but I'll try to update when anything does. The first large regions to swich off anolouge do so next year so it'll be interesting to see what happens there.

Christmas is over!

2006-12-27T17:43:00.000-08:00

But you'll always have your obiesty to remember it by. Just to let those interested(who?) know there was indeed a teletext advent calender this year. I seen it, meant to take a picture the next day, couldn't find the page the next day.Frankly it wasn't well advertised.But rest assured it was there.

What will soon not be there is the Viewers Poll on ITV's teletext service.At least not as we know it. From what I gather the new system will be that a 'motion' is suggested at the start of the week, viewers send in their opinions on it and then it is voted on at the end of the week. The news section itself will also be expanded slightly, with two-yes two, extra news stories. This probably the first teletext change since I've been writing this blog, and God knows I don't want to think about how long that has been, that I'm not entirely cyinical about. Seems like a good idea. A little hopefully-infoming disscusion before a 1'000 odd right-wing pensioners tell us their still uninformed opinions might be nice. Thats not alltogether uncyincal, but neither is it all cynical. The front page of the news section is also going to be reorganized to make it "more relevent." Vauge as that is, I will assume it will involve more local news on the front page rather than, say, a pixilated Dizzie Rascal rapping out the political section.

Which reminds me, and it actully did that wasn't a sleek link, the political section is also getting revamped. And not in the cut-and-replace-with-adverts-way. A feature which keeps you up to date with MP's speechs will be added along with more political stories. I suspect their wasn't actully a political section before this revolution, but let them have their moment.

And Finally...is the new section which will report on the "wackier" stories of the week. See, that was a sleek link. This particulary welcome after the very slow and quiet death of 10 things we didn't know last week on Ceefax. It was a little-less-nothing as someone once said. Didn't even get a proper send off from myslef. You know it wanted it.

There will probably be cuts to less used pages later in the year but for now we may enjoy as a renewed interest from Teletext Ltd in their first born.Merry 28/9th of December!

2006-12-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

It's almost Christmas(sort of) and time for new teletext news. In fact, although I could be mistaken, it may now be advent and so a a teletext calender should be wheeling it's way towards our screens. I have to say I wouldn't have remembered about that charming little page had it not been for the person who used the radio times site to search for teletext/advent and found this blog. Havn't found it yet, but it was fairly obsucre. I did find that teletext are offering to write a letter from Santa to your child. Disturbing at best.

I'm also informed sunny Espana is the scene of the latest inovations in teletext. In a web exclusive from variety magazine, it's reported that Fingertext is the new big thing. variety magazine neglects to mention quite what it is, but does say it publishes on two big spanish channels and "helps auds surf digital universe." Now one of the words in there doesn't look like a word to me.

Well, Google provides me anwsers to these questions.Firstly, Fingertext is a method, probably trademarked, used by activa multimedia that basicly amounts to digital teletext, but can also be used for an old-fashioned style teletext. The choice is up to the TV channel or network themselves, but fingertext can do both or integrate them. It can even change skins. Worthy of whatever award it won indeed( first prize at the Interactive Digital Television Congress if your wondering).

Secondly, Google confirms Auds is not a word. It is the profile name however, of a blogger on this site. It is also fairly regulary used to variety magazine's website, supplying the bizzare but hilarious head line

Auds chow down at Thanksgiving B.O

On a last note it's a welcome return for page of the day!

Page of the Day!

Page number:P376/7

Whats it ever done for me? Provides a very detailed account of cheap things to do in your local area, which is frankly quite handy round Christmas when your expected to be socialable and generous, often at the same time.

Grumbly, sweary, illiterate news

2006-08-28T14:26:00.000-07:00

Firstly some bad news, well sort of. The blog which attempted to take the mantle of defunct teletext chat page backchat, the blog known as "backchat forever" has ended. Different definiton of forever presumably. I only checked the link because apparently some poor soul was searching google for it and came across my dear blog.

One thing I meant to have a look at was the "teletext on your mobile" thing I've been seeing advertised of late. I eventully got round to it today. The link below explains:
http://bango.com/assets/data/pressreleases/58_textview.pdf#search=%22ceefax%2Bmobile%20phone%22

However one wonders how many people will pay £1:50 to see something they can get from imode.ceefax.tv for free. I have checked and it's fully mobile compatiable now. Of course all the teletext services now run instant messaging services where-by they send you expensive alerts about news,sport,weather etc. But is that really teletext? I don't mean to keep you up all night pondering so I'll simply say; no, it's not.

Thats really all their is to say on the matter. Frankly, their isn't much left to say about teletext-there isn't much left on it, so my posts are likley to be irregular and negative in tone. Which is a pity, really-not quite as bad as this one hopefully because I'm tired, in a hurry and genrally pissed. Anyway heres one of the happyist(fuck spelling,just fuck it) images I can imagine.

Something else about Zine and additional rant

2006-07-07T16:48:00.000-07:00

Well, my posts seem far too regular of late but after I spent last night declaring how unlikley it was Zine would be saved, Zine has been, well, saved. It will surivie on charmless digital teletext anyway. The move wouldn't stop the preverbial bulldozers I'm afraid. Still quite an achivment for a what is probably the best example on this planet of a group of wound-up crackpots. Still, those crazy rambling messages look much better surrounded by clunky, pixalated scenery. But still horrah for what is the only example of something interesting on Teletext being preserved. If you want to be cyinical and be branded a conspirist nutball you might suggest Zine was never going to be axed and it was all a PR a stunt. Seems less likley as it would be a PR stunt to around 700 people if their lucky.

It does beg the question however, why are Teletext and whoever at the BBC runs Ceefax, draining anything amusing from the system. Considering the BBC now says "interactive" and "blog"(see Newsnight for total overuse and over emphais, Paxman seems to prononce it BLa-GOGG) 12 times in every break they don't have but last three minutes, you'd think the'd refrain from deleting most of the columns and reviews while merging all comments pages into one poor one. It's not as if things like "quotes of the day" or proper music reviews are being replaced on digital text ,or BBCi if you will. Frankly I don't read teletext for news or weather, I turn on News 24-it's better. Actully I do read the Sci-Tech news and 10 things we didn't know last week and that's because they are interesting, suitably onscure and hard to find elsewhere. Now as teletext is gradully replaced by the internet in terms of speed and concisness, maybe even convenice, surely the best thing to do would be to have more selective pieces, not fewer. Put it this way, it's alot easier for me to find out what bloated hypocrisy factory John Prescott is up to without teletext than for me find out what new reptile has been discovered in Papa New Guina without teletext. Teletext main audience is those who aren't computer literate or those interest(eg, sites of angling in Wales reviewed) doesn't have much internet material on it. Teletext isn't realtive to the majorty of people and shouldn't be maintained as such.

Still negative rant aside, Viva la revelution contrario, y estará en el teletexto.

Renewed interest

2006-07-05T17:15:00.000-07:00

Time to roll out the old "people don't know what their missing till it's gone" cliche. It's not even that appropriate actually but it seemed like a good intro for a link to increasingly frantic efforts to save Mega-Aine. Bizarrely rock climbing pages have had no such response.

Anyway those at vegetable revelution have began a protest, or at least one new member claiming to be WLW has. Is he/she? Seems dubious, their is a backchat blog roaming around this site apparently edited by an ex-editor too. I can't imiange it will survive on Teletext, though after it tansfered to digital teletext I thought it might. It may survive on line, after all their have been numerous attempts to start a zine website, most, in fact all, are now defunct. The vegetable revelution fourm mainly reprints the letters on teletext. The paramount mailbox has made a decent fist of it, although contributions seemed to have decreased somewhat.

Their was probably a slight drop in quailty recently anyway, though I'm told the golden days were well before I had access to teletext. In the thread I link to their is a worringing mention had mega-zine has ended early, publishing it's final message today. I havn't checked yet,as my remotes died-hopefully some sort of error. Only because I want a letter published, being the vain but lazy person I am i havn't done it yet. Also the I link to a spefic thread as one person sums up my grivence with digital televison far more succiently than I ever could.

Cuts to channel four text(starts July 13th)

2006-07-01T18:59:00.000-07:00

In what seemed an inevitbale move, considerin the amount of pages that have a massivly limited appeal, Teletext is doing a fairly large cull of it's pages on channel four. I'll update anything more I find tomorrow.

Heres a quick sum-up of the five page explanation helpfully placed on the prominet page of 304, though it only seems to be linked to on the front page of planet sound. Not that your missing much, the list of "major" changes at the end of the five page explanation(suspicously similar to the last "revamp" explanation) implies there are more not mentioned. The jist is that pages with falling readerships are being removed ahead of the switchover to digital. What disaster would befall us if we switchover to digital with teletext pages with falling readerships? Who dares to think. Theres also the genral comment that less people are using traditional teletext, more using digital. It would pull on the heart strings if Teletext didn't run both. For those who are counting I believe the word revamp is used 4 times and the phrase "expanded and enhanced" twice. Thankfullly it is the latter which befalls excellent music secton planet sound. Others ,however, are not so lucky...(set your keyboards to melo-dramtic and revel in the moment-no-ones looking)

Maybe the most surprising being "teen magazine" Ace. Stupid name aside it seemed fairly popular but teletext rating's apparently say different. I wonder how they're measured? Anyway, the letters page Mega-Zine, again crap name aside, has recieved cult status(check wikipedia if you don't believe me), even if it just seems like a place for bored students to ramble to a giraffe. Upset is a plenty, 10 years old the section-practicly an instution by teletext terms. Still it outlived great rival backchat.

Other big cut sections include It's Your Life, which seemed to be a teletext magazine for housewives, recipes, stories about people with cancer. It's success can be measured by the fact that it was created in the last "revamp" to replace something or other. Ah, now maybe that's the thing-it replaced something I can't remember, and now there disposing of it-very clever, mollify us with a section sounding like a bon jovi song and firghtfully dull, when it goes we don't care and forget why it was created. Though thats probably not true, it's a nice conspiercy. I think it replaced some form of entertainment section by the way.

Actully IYL has kind of been replace itself with a worryingly vauge health, food, etc. So more recipes and cancer abound. Other removals, include Euro Routes, Angling news and rock climbing. Maybe not a massive loss but if it's your thing...well you might be slightly vexed. Another new addition is Night Out, which describes possible nights out around the country. Not new as such. Or in fact at all. Night club and music inofrmation is already avaible on planet sound while thearte, cinema listings and the arts are already aviable elsewhere. But it will mean a clumping together.

Speaking of planet sound, it is to be expanded and moved to page 340. It's one of the more popular sections so thats not a surprise. The only worry is that as it is bascily eating Ace(taking it's pages for the those who don't comprehend such technical lanuage) it will have to be less hardcore(exuse the stupid word). The reason Planet Sound is so popular is because it's probably the best alterntive music magazine around. It's turned me on to some great bands I would never of heard of otherwise. But lets remain optimistic, afterall it's getting extra pages-which has to be good.

Another addition, pencilled in for "later this month" is extra sports and betting content in the 500's. Sounds suspiously like more adverts. This is pretty much what was done to most satillite text services at the end.

PS: I mistakenly said earlier pages with lower
readerships were being cut, in fact pages with lower viewerships were being cut. Thus the creators of teletext answer it's age old question-do you read, watch or use teletext? None it is to be viewed. And you should all do so.

TalkyText

2006-05-16T16:08:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit buzy at the minute so updates will be loose and irregular, like, er, something. An old persons bowels maybe. Does that make sense? Enough. Incredibley buzy as you can see. Considering how few people visit these days I'm not sure who I'm talking to. Well, theres always that Yahoo! robot that seems to check my page three times a day. Hi. It's a pity I always use google, but it was first to list textontext, so meh.

There is actully news. Developments in teletext are rare, I could say loose and irregular, but I got wind today of yet another freaky new teletext thingy(this following on from the excellently named intellitext which operates on digital radio, see previous post). A new chunky but futuristic looking piece of equitment, combined with a similar TV I imagine can now read teletext to you. And of course, you can tell it were to go. And not in an angry-cockney type of way. Well you could, but why would you.It's great. I'm intrigued to know what the voice would sound like. It should be geeky, slightly overweight and fairly old. BTW the fattest voice in the UK is talkSPORT host Mike Dicken. I've never seen him but he sounds like he moves around by forklift truck.

Link to talkytext(not real name) story below.The sidebars been playin up. Mainly cause I fiddled with it too much.

Lots of news on teletext and intellitext

2006-04-13T16:07:00.000-07:00

Lack of interest and lack of time has prevented me from posting for a while, though you'll note that a now have a teletext advert floating around the front page. Was on You-Tube for some reason.

Quite a bit of news. I've forgotten most of it. The pretense of professionalism has long been dropped I'm afraid. The anoluge(if this keeps coming up I'm going to have to learn to spell anoluze) switch-off, or teletext armageddon if you will, has been mentioned again, this time in more paniced tones. About a third of people know it's happenening, about a quater know when and pensioners are presumably too buzy sending their right-wing view points about how the younger people should give them money,money,money to teletext to actully find out about their TV's(which is real terms means only about ten precent know.)

Planet Sound, one of my favorite teletext pages and probably the best music magazine in the UK, has had a few exculisives of late. Not sure how but quite a few album and tour dates get annonced there first. Came up in my Google "teletext" news alert yesterday where the NME credited an exculive about Kylie Minouge to the humble teletext section. Strangly though, when i clicked on the link I found it had been changed from "Eavis told Planet Sound, music section on channel four teletext" to "Eavis told assiocated press. Tried to put that in bold using HTML, might not work. It actully was in blod though. Odd. I reckon they felt threatened. If so, rightly so-the NME is the musical equivlent of etheir a very bad tabliod or some very good toilet paper. But with more adverts, genrally placed beside a review were they lambast a band for "Selling out." And if your really lucky, next week they'll sing the bands praises and put them on the cover cause they sell alot( see Oasis,Babyshambles, Richard Ashcroft). Quite a rant there. It's less acceptable to off on one in real life though os I have to do here.

Back to teletext news. Ole teletext had quite a bit of mainstream media coverage of late as a survey revealed that out of the six and half million people who regulary use subtitles, only one million actully have hearing difficulties. I was a bit shocked my the scale, but it's certainly pretty common. I know alot of people who do it and do it myself on occasions. Theres an article on it on the BBC website I'll try and link to. Theres something mezmerizing about being able to read what is being said on screen. I think it makes you enjoy the film/prgramme more too, as your paying more attention to whats going on. Of course live subtitling, as used in News and most sporting events is mor entertaining than imformative. Vast chunks of speech cut or edited so the poor subtitler has the vaugest chance of keeping up, words completly mis-spelt. At the beginning, nearly all programmes were done like this, but realising how impossible this was they changed it so most programmes are suntitled in advance, keeping beautiful time with those moving pictures.

Maybe the most interesting news on the teletext in the past few days though is this:

"The most interesting features(of new digital radios), though, are the text functions, which go by the names of textSCAN and Intellitext.The former lets you pause and control the lines of text you get from DAB broadcasts, so you won’t miss writing down a website or song title.Some broadcasters are now beefing up this information to give you sports news and headlines, and Intellitext gives you on-demand access to all of these updates, like a radio version of Teletext."

Teletext on radio? Two dying mediums brought into the digital age as one? I like it. I havn't seen one in action but I have been wanting to get a digital radio for a while and they are a bit cheaper now. I also love the name Intellitext. Crucilly though, this looks like it will be more like traditional teletext than it's akward younger "look at my video clips there CLAASSSSS" digital brother. Obviously it'll take a while before it has the depth and beautifullt pointlessness and neglect attached to it that the televison version has, but it's got to start somewhere. A new birth then for teletext. Which is handy cause no-ones aware of the impending death.

Ghana and a non-Ghana related idiot

2006-02-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

As my updating history shows it takes me a while to do anything. This includes anger. I've never been someone esspecialy bothered with spam. It's not as if it takes along time to delete. But a certain Park Ranger's constant spamming of pretty much every blog on this site is much more irritating. He has no reason other than egotism. Someone got in into his site recently and posted breast feeding pictures apparntly. Theres some speculation that he's not a real park ranger. You'd have to be pretty sad to be a fake park ranger. But I really don't care enough to find out.

Now on to actul teletext news. It is there, mind you my juicyfruiter rant was what inspired me to write. A new, yes new, teletext service has been lanuched in....wait for it...Ghana! On TV3 Network, a private company. It will be free and in a county where internet is pretty rare it should have a pretty long and useful shelf life. We saulute you Ghana!

Asides

2006-01-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

A long delay as blogger insists I have forgotten my user-name and my password. To recover had to find an email account I hadn't used in ages. Still I probably won't have posted anyway.

Indeed it's been a quite start to the year for teletext, and I only tried to get into blogger again a couple of days ago. Why? Only an endorsement of the service from the highest office in the land! It's long been rumored that Tony Blair was a teletext fan but in avoiding a question at a recent press coference he confirmed it. Asked about the the no-doubt-soon-to-be-dubbed Rockgate cricis(UK reignites good ole days of cold war with spy rock placed in the middle of a Moscow park. How interested are the British government in tramp urine and russian squrills?) Tone replied with "Look, I only saw it myself on teletext this morning." So there you go. Reason enough to vote for the war-mongering slimeball? I leave that to your consinsce. I don't really dislike Tony that much, I had originally wrote scumbag.

I had originally delayed this post to find something else teletext related, which I've now entirley fogotten.But a quick google seacrh did find something new. An interesting article on the "Death of Teletext." I say new, it actully looks a bit dated but I've never read it before. Digital teletext now does use page numbers, though is still beset by other problems, which I've likly said before. The main one is that it has tendecy to disappear for no reason every now and again. Sky Text is appalingly slow, it has actully got worse recently. The BBC insist that certain items come with video segaments that are enriely unrelated. I mean when your reading a newspaper they don't force you to watch a DVD do they? Mini-rant over. I'll post a link in the sidebar to the article but as they have a tendecy not to work I'll also post the adress here: http://www.transdiffusion.org/emc/techmark/teletext.php

Happy Christmas

2005-12-24T16:02:00.000-08:00

Yes a happy christmas to everyone. Sounds better than Merry don't you think? I meant to post an update sometime this month mentioning the teletext advent calender on ITV. I only discovered it a few days ago. P198. It's a santa today if your interested. I'll try to get a picture of the grand finale tomorrow. Until then this will have to suffice.

Now merry followed by Ceefax, that sounds fine.

Last night

2005-11-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

With the three wise fourm type pages ending tomorrow it has been a week-end of goodbye message on Vibe,Chatterbox and Backchat. Actully only backchat has got an esspecially enthusastic and sentimental response. No-one can get very passionate about TV. Music a touch more. But an open fourm with a dedicated readership seems to get a very passionate response, albiet from a small number of people.

Infact this very site(Blogger) is now hosting a web-version of backchat and there is an online petion a foot to return Backchat to text. Links at the side of the page. Incase I forget though the name is backchatforever inside the usual blogger adress. If you unfamilar with that just look at the adress of this page. I have to say I'm quite sure if the way it's currently formatted is going to be viabible. The paramount mailbox is a good example of how it could be done. But I suppose that would be more difficult it blog form. It's got a mention from text backchat anyway so it should get more hits than your average blog.

I don't know if there will be another issue of backchat, vibe or chatterbox(crap name) or if they will die in the night, but goodbye to them etheir way.

PS: As a Northern Irish person I think it's law I have to pay tribute to George Best. Hyperbolic media coverage aside though, a true legend.

Bandwagon

2005-11-21T13:31:00.000-08:00

My last post was about pages being cut from Teletext's(company) teletext service. Well no this one. This is about Ceefax cutting a substanial number of pages from it's entertainment service. It's reorganizing though, not revamping, so it's not just mindlessly doing something to appear on the ball.

The most noticable things being changed is probably(because I like them) the three letter/comment page things being merged. Previously we had Chatterbox(TV bitchin'),The Vibe(Music whinin') and Backchat(adolescent talk and odd older people); now, or at least as of the 28th of November, we will have Have Your Say. An all purpose comments page for entertainment. The loss of these pages themselves doesn't amount to much but it does make Ceefax less of an interesting magazine with charcater and more of a bland yellow information service.

The reviewing is also being cut back on. I don't often read the film ones but it is noticable in the music reviews that they are actully unique with0in the BBC. There not copied from the internet or the digital service. Anyway single reviews are gone, album reviews are cut back, as are film reviews.

Those aside the genral vibe(it's nearly a pun) is to cut back on quizzes, comments, reviews and previews. Basicly anything which could dare raise a smile or indeed interest. Have a look at Ceefax explaining it in their own words. If you can't you can see them below, hopefully. If I'm going to whine about something even less important than the removal of a few teletext pages it's the fact that irritating sub-pages are added all over the place. Grr.

Main entertainment page sub-page on the "reorganizing". Good genral overview.

The music explanation. No Vibe? What am I paying my liscene fee for?

And the end of Backchat.Oh and other stuff. Theres an early post where I eulgoise about Backchat. It's really not that good but it is an exuse to laugh at others stupidy and problems.

That concludes the gallery section. The one thing that really worries me is the teletext services tedency to copy each others revamps and reorgs. I mean a Ceefax style cut back on the Teletext channels (ITV+C4) would mean an end, or sevre cutbacks, crappening if you will, of planent sound, Mega-Zine, Bamboozle and that TV thing. Not to mention those polls compleated by neo-conversative pensioners!

Bamber at least should be safe. He's evn crossed over to digital text. Or rather the game has. Unfortunitly digitext can't support our host. Or even an interactive-press the button to anwser the question interface.Ametuers.

Cuts for kids and crickters

2005-11-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

As I've mentioned numerous times before the word "Revamp" when used by Teletext really means "pages to be replaced by adverts." ITV isn't too affected but channel four certainly is. The notices have been up for around a week but initally I didn't think it warrented mention here as all that seemed to be happening was page moving. Today though scrolling through the 300's.(Start at 350, read music stuff, get 380 read Zine stuff,gulity pleusure,read childrens pages for amusing, blocky worm drawings) I noticed the entire kids section was being withdrawn as of the 18th of November. It was at least an honest explanation, that charminly started "Dear kids and parents." It basicly explained that fewer kids are watching/reading/using the section and due to the switchover to digital, pages like this would have to be removed. I'm not explaining this well but I'm afarid I don't have a functioning TV near me at the minute. If it really were National Teletext Month I would be very angry. I was still very angry when I first read it, but I can see the logic to it. I can't envisage many 5-10 year olds pressing text going to page 390 to read some jokes, look at sent in pictures displayed in teletext graphic or read about the mis-adventures of Turner the Worm and Glug the Slug. Then again they may do. If any 5-10 year old kids are reading a blog about teletext please inform me.

Once I'd shouted at the screen for a bit I followed the link to p270 which conatined all the "revamparations"(not a real quote or word). It was then I realised the scale of the thing. 8 pages long! And a table included at the end to simplify things. Most things are only moving, in some cases so it matches the ITV Teletext, a good thing. Certain things are being removed though. I can't remember all of them now but the main three are

390's-Kids-I never liked it, even as a kid but it is sad to see it go as it's one of the more attractive things about teletext. The quaint pages that don't really work as concepts(Sent your pictures to be shown on teletext with it's blocky graphics and 7 colours?)
160's-Cricket-Considering cricket is now more popular with the genral public than it has been for around 60 years this may seem like odd timing. But considering how Channel Four has lost the rights to live cricket indefintly you may reconsider.
690's-World of Work-It's main claim to fame may that it occupies the highest pages on teletext, asides from the newly created cars, but it is actully one of the few pages that helps people. It's given me better careers advice than any careers teacher I've ever had. It's also actully interactive. People write in with there problems concerning how and where to get work and get answers. A little more effective than choosing wetehr to watch easterenders clips or listen to some woman blabber on about Charlotte Church and Pete Docherty( See music+film reviews on BBCi, real TV isn't an option MUST be interactive). More of a genuine loss than the others, though probably won't really be noticed be the vast majorty.
Page-not sure-Crimestoppers- Just remembered this one. I flick past it every now and again but can't remember the page. It's a good idea though and surely doesn't cost that much to maintain or take up much space. No digital equivlent to it etheir, or WoW(World of Work, what an abbriviation!)

It's all inevitable of course. And thats the tone adopted in the explanation from teletext. In fact considering said tone and the fact Teletext the company has around 70 other busnues interests now I do wonder when they will pull the service entirly. I had always half-assumed it would die gracfully with it's live-in lover anolouge televison. But once entire regoins begin to stop recieving teletext the probably already meagre profit made by the teletext service run by Teletext the comapany(This would be so much easier if they had thought of an original name) will decrease massivly. It's likley Teletext will end it's service when the regional turn-offs begin in 2008. Ceefax may hang around longer since it does not need to turn a profit. Then again uber-trendy, attention seeking BBC types couldn't imainge being behind the times. Certainly not to ITV, the only thing less cool than Geri Halliwell.

If you wait for a bus for ages and then three come at once you really should complain to the bus company. Now who should I complain too about this? Three teletext stories recently after a verrry barren run.

Apparntly very few people are aware that the anolouge switch off is actully happening. 2/3 couldn't tell you the date.Of those over 40 something 63% ahd never heard of it. While 90% of pensioners said "Whats all this commontion?".Or words to that effect. SwitchCo is ready to start a massive PR campagin though. Well thats my life compleated. If you look at reports on the BBC website for the switchover you'll notice a pattern heres you stories in the related headlines section.

UK not ready for switch-off
Digital incentives urged
Viewers may be paided to go digital
BBC says switchover still on target

The fact that the BBC are sayng that shows doubt. Oh and the story I'm actully reading
"Doubts raised over digital switch." You'll also notice from that story that the deadline for ending anolouge transmissions has increased by 2 years in the last year. Find a mathmatian whi can explain that. (Overdoses on smugness, hits self with near by phone)

The other story is a rare thing. Advertising for teletext. Televised advertising too. It's all for Teletext Cars, the new boy. It's also for the web-site and digital text version but you take whta you can get. 2 mil spent on it appearntly.

Linky

Thats all and frankly it's enough. My longest post in quite a while and since it's back to school on Monday probably my last in quite a while. Have fun!

Clocks

2005-11-01T16:36:00.000-08:00

The title of a Coldplay song I used to be able to play on a keyboard. But thats not the issue. As anyone from the UK might know a few days ago(Saturday I believe,early Sunday really) the clocks went back an hour. Asides from the usual pointless discussion over wether it is correct to do this or not there was some Teletext related news. Ceefax apparntly forgot to chnage the clocks. I say "forgot", heres a rather tedious article inw hich the BBC are at pains to point out they didn't forget:http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16313351&method=full&siteid=66633&headline=bbc-get-ticking-off-for-clock--name_page.html. No, of course not. There equitments just a steaming pile of shit.

You'd think no-one would care, but they do. Videoplus, a number-based video recording, er, thing uses Ceefax as their clock. Somehow. So a bunch of people didn't see what they wanted to tape at 2 AM on a Sunday morning. Does beg the question, what were they watching?

Videoplus is screwed come 2012, when Teletext ceases to exsist, I suppose. No more news on that by the way. I assume those TV execs are still being givens classes to ease their confusion by Tessa "so many jobs, so little meaning" Jowell.

I may have missed one important teletext milestone (see last post)but I have noticed my own blog is approaching fifity posts. I probably not notice that etheir so I'd thought I'd mention it now. Theres some champagne n offer but only two glasses.

NTM's eve(or not)

2005-10-30T17:12:00.000-08:00

I havn't posted in about a month but now is timly return. As I mentioned before November is National Teletext Month, or at least it was once in 1980 something. Expect a full-frontal media campagin. It won't happen but it will give you something to look forward too.

OK just found out something rather irritating. National Teletext Month was in October, not November. So really I didn't post at all in the majorty of NTM and this is last day of it. I won't delete the early part of my post or any previous ones that mention NTM as I deserve to be punished for my idiocy.

Oh what a waste of time.

Forgotten

2005-10-01T17:28:00.000-07:00

It has been a very long twelve days. I could of swore it had been about a month since I last posted. I'd like to think that was because I had cramped my life full of excitement but it's more likely because I rue every minute. Well, not really but I do love needless drama. And the word "Rue."

I don't like to criticism anything about teletext but there's a group of pages that truly deserve it recently. Every ITV teletext region is given a section of text around the 600's to make it's own. UTV, my own regional ITV franchise, use a grand total of two of those pages. And a dreay title page which hasn't been changed in at least six years. There are actually more pages not listed in the index. There's crime call which is currently mentioning 4 stolen quads. Then there's a host of pages about ITV shows, not at all specific to UTV or Northern Ireland but there still there. This Morning and GMTV takes 640-649, though funny enough not 641 or 642. GMTV2 also takes a few pages, quite odd as if your using an obscure teletext page you probably can't or don't want to watch GMTV2.

Not to be outdone This Morning has one page. Okay it is outdone. It's called the This Morning factfile, but that never appears. Also the top of the word This isn't visible. There is the chance to cook will Phil Victery though, no I don't know either.

The next page is once again entirely unadvertised and unrelated. It is an advert for a video and book to accompany the The Last Horseman, a sersis I assume was on ITV at some point. I have to recollection of it though. Nor does the IMDB, unless it's a actually a western from 1944. Not even teletext is quite that dated though. You do wonder if that advert will ever be cost effective. Not many people browse teletext. Fewer, I'm sure, browse particularly shoddy areas of teletext. And I can't believe any would be willing to pay around Â£32 to get a rathervaguelyy described "video and book," to accompany a sersis that they have never heard of.

Next page calls all Christmas party goers! It's new Sky One reality programme called Christmas Uncovered. I bet you didn't even knowChristmass was covered. Maybe they're going to reveal Santa Claus isn't real. Or maybe it will be a factualdocumentaryy about theactuall birth of Jesus Christ,examinesg the differencebetweenn myth and fact. Or not.

CITV text next. What wacky adventures are there forkiddiess her you ask? A logo, an emailaddresss, a phone number and anaddresss. The word only flashes though.

Thenthere'ss a thirty-one page gap. I'm pretty sure there used to be more pages but they seem to havedisappearedd. That meansnumericallyy the top page of ITV teletext is........

I'm not at all sure what a minicom is. It has alot of numbers anyway.

Well that concludes our jouney through theterminallyy dull world of regional teletext. Was it worth it? Probably not. But even if no-one reads this it will likely still double it's exposure.

Additional note:For those curious The Last Horseman was a six part sersis originally screened on ITV in 2001. After 4 years the advert may be cost effective. Or they can't be arsed bringing it down.

Ahead of the game

2005-09-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

I noticed recently on Ceefax news that Tessa Jowel(Culture minister I think)has released a statement about the digital switchover. I read it and I can only assume it's being released under the same philopsy that allows bands to re-release their early singles when they get famous. It's almost exactly the same and I'm not going to bother linking to it. TV chiefs(mmm, tabloidy)got all this in person because I survey showed that they were left confused about the switchover, when it was and what exactly is happening. I would marvel at that clear ineptitude and lack of intelligence but with programmers like Celebrity Wrestling, Celebrity Shark Bait and Celebrity Sky Diving(not sure of real title but thats the concept) on ITV and No sex please were teenagers and Bring Your Huspand to Hell(sorry, heel) that has already been done.

I've been noticing increased creativity over at Bamber Boozler. After being very simlar for about 7 years he, or rather his creators, have been making things more interesting. Recents highlights include upside down bamber, a picture of the creators of Bamber(badly drawn using teletext in a reveal at the end)and less recently a green suit on St Patricks day. There are more but my memory is, to put it bluntly, shit.

If anyone seen my not that well executed attempt to start a world teletext day early this year you may well have reason to doubt this, but I assure you it is entirly true. There is indeed a National Teletext Month. Or rather their was in 1982. It probably hasn't been celebrated alot since. But this year it shall. God knows how but somehow. If you still don't believe heres a link to the exact page http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/timeline/oct81/rt-article.shtml. There ya go.

Quick news

2005-09-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

Around 40 teletext journalists are going to be sacked along with half of an editing team. This is only from one source but since it was the Journalists Union(or something simlar) it's probably accurate. Though they don't reconize the Teletext journalists as proper members so basicly they aren't going to do anything. This is being done because Teletext(the company) wishes to focous more on it's website, Tv channel, holiday companies and novelty mugs. One of those may not be true. I suppose their reckoning is their is very little money left in teletext. Though considering the amount advertisers must pay to display their ads on a system more widly used than the internet and the not-exactly-state of the art technology involved I'd say theirs still alot of profit margin there.

Teletext does have a chance at a resurge in the futre years though, I think, for two main reasons. People in the UK are moranicly nostalgic. Look at Live 8, the last few bands were all stale, middle age and up bands from the sixties and seventies. The current music scene as a strong as that of the those years, better in my opinion, but they were told to close the show. When historinas look back now they are going to think the biggest bands around in 2005 were The Who, Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney. Docter Who is another example. But I digress. My point is once people realise that Teletext is soon to disapeer they get very sentimental about it. "Backdrop to out lives" is the pharse I'm betting on. The other reason is Mr Burns real-life equivlent, no not Sven, but Rupert Mordoch and his burning diseare to own every sport ever played ever.Ever.From next year cricket is leaving terrestial. No big loss in my book, it's easier to understand on teletext and it doesn't have Geoffry Boycott. Football is slowly being played to death on Sky Sports and no with no rolling results service on Saturdays never mind the other days Teletext's updatiabilty(not a word) is very important.

Instead of creating a new post I thought I'd just edit this hastily finished old one. A little news on the blog itself first. By looking through by sitemetre I've noticed that since William Gallagher left Ceefax alot of my hits have been lost die hard fans looking for his site. I proudly tell them I have a link. I try the link last night. It doesn't work. Not sure why, but it seems to link to somewhere entirly different than I tell it. Well despite my valient attempts to fix it, it ,er, isn't fixed. What I have cunningly done however is post the adress(which is correct) under link text so a quick copy and paste should do. If that doesn't work, well, he's not that good.

I can't seem to find any other information on that journalist sacking thing so it may not be true. I doubt anyone, bar those journalists and their friends and family, are interested but just in the interests of accuracy.

I stopped doing a teletext thing of the day a while ago, for two reasons really. 1) It's alfully tedious tracking down the numbers and B) I would be running short of ideas about now. But the Teletext section I've been using most often recently is Planet Sound on C4 text. For quick, up to date and well written news and reviews of music only the NME website comes close. And you don't get the almost terminal amount of smugness and thousands of refernces to Pete Docherty. Though they seem to be giving up on him now that theres a slight whiff of doubt about his talent. Decent letters page with Speakeasy ad that has been there for around seven years and varying sections depending on days including demos, roots, hip-hop, reggae. They also manage to find 8-9 pages of music news daily, which is pretty impressive.

One news-like thing I got through my google-alerts recently was from the BBC website editor(yes he exsists) private column. Appearntly the first three paragraghs of the BBC website report are used for the Ceefax news. He mused over the cleverness of this for a while but failed to realise it often leads to headlines that don't make sense. I've seen a few of them but the most recent was something like "Pasily condems roiters" but of course the report contained no such condemnation, it may well have done on the BBC website, but not on Ceefax. Not so clever.

I havn't checked my Ceefax alerts for a while(though there are genraly less of them and are mostly about lottery winners who "just turned on Ceefax" to find out they won) so I may have a few new pieces of news soon. If I've a few ideas for posts anyway. A less hasty goodbye.

2005-08-31T18:43:00.000-07:00

This is another post without a vast amount of news. It's just that school and bastardly GCSE's are probably going to keep me quite buzy over the next year or at least trying to avoid them will. There probably won't be alot of updates. And though this blog doesn't accomplish much by way of hits or regular readers, although my sitemetre suggests their are a few, it is the ONLY regulary updated site about teletext on the internet. Speaking of which one of the good things that may come out of the next school year is properly learnng how to create a website. Summer ambitions rarley come to anything for me I'm afarid and I failed triumphuntly to create textontext.tk. Firstly they didn't send me a conformation e-mail, so I had to wait a week before applying again which I didn't do. Thats most likly because I knew I'd balls it up anyway. So theres a past,present and futre of this blog. If I do get around to creating a website I think I'll keep the blog as a running news service.

Though theres little to no news about teletext coming forward from the medium itself the always weird and wonderful internet(is that offically a cliche yet?) is a litttle more forthcoming. I've a few more links to teletext sites to add but by far the oddest is Teletext Babez. The sexiest teletext pages around, or at least in Germany. And it's good old fashioned teletext, blocky and seven colours. So if you've ever wondered what a what a pair of breasts or an appearntly sexy ass would look like trasmitted in limited pixels heres your chance. My speakers aren't working right now but the site says in comes with a suitably sexy soundtrack. Well, I paraphrase. Prehaps more weird than wonderful. And prehaps disturbing fetish would be a better description than weird. But live and let live.

I also found MTV text live lurking around. Again I'll post a link at somepoint but it's basicly a giant ad.

Well see you sometime. Read Teletext.Bye

Update

2005-08-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

I can't call this post anything else because theres little news in the world of teletext. I mean at present, but it's also true as genral statement. I happened to have lost my TV remote, which doesn't help as I can't access teletext without it. I'll see if I can get access to someone else tomorrow and have a good look through though.

I added a new link. This ones to statistics about teletext from a remote part of teletext's website. Essentialy it seems to be trying to sell it's service to advertisers but some of the stats are quite interesting. Who knew that more people watch teletext in a week than eat mars bars? One of many gems. 18 million people a week use Teletext by the way. And thats only the company Teletext, eg doesn't include Ceefax. And thats alredy over 1/4 of the population.

Slightly old news here, it's another statement from our favorite government waste of money since the millinium dome, SwichCo. The statement was actually issued over a year ago. It asks for a full review of teletext services in this new media age(Their words.) I'd love to hear one from SwichCo, just to laugh at the pretenious lanuage but alas,we'll probably never see it.

Also on Googlings(I wonder if I can copyright that?) looking for news I came across a 65 page report on the recent digital swichover trail in, eh, somewhere. Unfoutunitly it's not loading very well on my computer and it's 65 pages long so it probably won't get read. But I'll post a link to it so anyone with a super computer and too much time on their hands can read it. I have manged to read a little. By searching Ceefax rather than Teletext you avoid all the tedious guff about the coperate company ceefax. I advise everyone to read as it's oddly humorous but I'll try to shorten it down. Fears about loss of Ceefax and Teletext largly unfounded. Many households complained that their is less information(correctly.) We attrubite this to them forgetting to press the down button.That sentence is genuine. Theres stupid people involved in this trail somewhere, though I'm not sure which side.

Well I may have to check out new remotes tomorrow as I've no idea where mine's got to and I'm missing my teletext. I'm off to bed, though I may call in on Ceefax.tv on the way.

Reprisals. By the way how do you turn off overtype mode?

2005-08-04T16:03:00.000-07:00

A short post today. Just wanted to acknowledge that the music section on Ceefax has returned to it's former glory.(sic) So the infamous entertainment cut backs may not be as drastic as once feared.

Also I've noticed in the last few days that the much vaunted BBC i has been faltering somewhat. I rarely use it but when I do, usual because I can't find the other remote, I notice that often when entering a number and pressing select the service simply disappears. Annoying. I just remembered the other reason I rarely write about digital text. It's very hard to describe without descending into meaningless buzz words. The main reason being my overpowering dis-like for the contraption.

I keep forgetting to mention this but the poll didn't work. I'm not sure anyone noticed but if they did and got confused and angry and the error message, well, I wish I could give you those minutes back by without my time machine it's not possible. Until I obtain ÃÂ£500trillionn pounds here is msincerestsapologizeses. Please forgive that last sentence it is a combenation of overtype mode I can't remove and a rather poor spellchecker.

Endings. And maybe the beginning of an ending.

2005-07-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

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.

Errors all round and a little bland news. Oh and quite a random but interesting photo picture

2005-07-26T16:18:00.000-07:00

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.

Theres Cee-fax changes afoot

2005-07-21T15:38:00.000-07:00

"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!

New teletext

2005-07-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

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.

2005-06-20T15:08:00.000-07:00

By Golly I bet it did. Teletext subtitles from the USA before you question the relavence.

2005-06-20T15:07:00.001-07:00

CBS have Extravison. Bit too orange for my taste.

2005-06-20T15:07:00.000-07:00

Canada appears

2005-06-20T15:05:00.000-07:00

NBC menu page

Starcrossed: The USA and teletext

2005-06-20T14:00:00.000-07:00

The love affair that never was. As most of any readers who stumble upon my fair site are likley to be mainly Americans I feel I should offer an explanation to why teletext has remained a forign rarity in one of the worlds most technolgically advanced countries. I didn't quite get this myself until starting this blog. The most basic explanation is that the televisons could not brodcast teletext to the same quality as most of europe. At least in the eighties, when teletext was first considered in America. Teletext is brodcast on VBI(Vertical Blanking Intervel) from what I know of this it is a group of elctron beams which are brodcast to the televison. They scroll over the televison in vertical lines to make frame trasistion seamless. Thats not really important though. Because some of this vertical lines are not visbale on screens and so are unused. Unless of course there is teletext. The problem with America is or was that a lesser proportion of the VBI is left free. Around 8-10 lines less I beleive. This means any teletext would look even clunkier and blockier than usual.

There are other reasons Teletext never took of in America thoguh. For one thing the government mainly left it's development "to the markets." This meant their was no definite teletext form for along time. Many small local stations simply copied the format of the UK's Ceefax or Frances Antiope service. Legally I should add. But on the most part they were brodcasting to no-one as Televison manufactures were reluctant to make sets with the de-coders due to the lack of agreement between the companies over the techical brodcasting deatails of Teletext. Also teletext sets cost alot to make and buy back in then so there was a high possibilty of losing lot of money. Since Teletext is supported mainly by advertisments, and since advertisers don't like advertising to no-one there was a definite lack of money coming from that corner too.

By the time NABTS, the basic protocal for brodcasting teletext in North America, was introduced the fate of teletext was already sealed. Many smaller stations presisted with Ceefax clones for a some time. CBS and NBC both had rather short lived NABTS based teletext services. They were taken down in the mid-eighties. The price of televisons with Teletext decoders had not fallen enough for people to buy them en mass. That was more or less the end of traditional teletext in Norh America(sorry for not mentioning Canada through out this but on the whole the same applies)

In the mid-ninties teletext had a form of rebirth. Intel launched a televison-based information service. It was brodcast through the VBI but was interactive and shared more blood with modern Digital teletext or even the windows system on which it was based. Even it shut down in the late ninties, usurped by the rise of the internet.

So did the internet kill American teletext? Maybe. But you could also say it raised to levels it never seen before. There are now many different on-line Teletext feeds from around the world, so any teletext starved american has a whole world of text in front of them.

So a happy ending? If I were to be horribly pretenious I might say that it's only right that Ameicas mainly immegrent population should have an immegrent teletext network. Hmm, no thats a pile fo shite. But still. Can't really end this so I think I'll jus taillll ofof df osfsdfg.gs.gd.f

Post some pictures of American text later with a bit of luck.

The Question

2005-06-11T18:04:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since my last post. Tests in school all last week I'm afriad left me short of time. I was asssured Teletext would be on my IT test but I was disappionted to learn it was taken off as it was "too old-fashioned." My hours of research wasted.

It made me think though. I don't like it but new digital teletext is the futre of teletext in any carnation. So is it real teletext and which is better? I may have done a rather one sided comparsion of this before so I thought I'd leave it up to the public. Considering that only 1 person has actually visted the site this week it may still only be my vote but hey, thats good too.

Have your Say and VOTE really even if you don't care just pick one at random. Thats how politics should work.

Ar you a reader or a user?

2005-05-22T13:42:00.000-07:00

Something I've noticed since starting this blog is that Teletext is a rare thing in that it's something everyone uses but no-one talks about. To my mind the reasoning behind this is for most people is the same as the reasoning why no-one talks about lightswiches. Most people only use teletext for one or two things. TV lsiting, news flash or sports. Nothing much to say there really. In fact my subscription to google alerts about teletext is often a story about how something shocking, usually sport releated, was releyed to them by Teletext. The idea being teletext is a very mundane thing. However I believe that this is because most people use teletext rather than read it or watch it.

If you were simply to flick through all the pages of a mainstream teletext service you'd find it's more comprehensive than most newspapers or magazines. And if you will eventully develop regular sections that you will read. In the same way as you become accustomed to Televison programs you be become accustomed to teletext pages. And you may ,like me, get very upset if you favorite pages are deleted,altered or even moved.

It intruiges me to know how many other people read teletext. Most people seem to prefer opinionated newspapers or magazines so they can steal quotes and sound intelligent. Or like an arsehole depending on publication. So today I shall be conducting a Google search for various Teletext terms. Results below;

"Love teletext"-Results: 25
A nearly productive search. A dicovered a newsgroup about teletext. Unused since 2001 though and it descended into personal bitching. A few other message board theards. Of course their was also a good slab of sarcasm involved. Also two people who meet their own loves on teletext. The sponsered matches also contained a hardcore porn site. You may work the relevence of that out yourself.

"Use teletext" verus "Read teletext"
1'180 339
Not much competion there.

"Watching teletext" 365(one for every dayof the year)
An alful lot of tense football fans talking about watching a crucial match on teletext. A very stressful thing I've done myself.

One last one I hope gets few results
"Hate teletext" results-ONE!And one too many.
Really only one site on the net says the phrase hate teletext. And on closer inspection it's a teletext emulator site. It really loves teletext. Excellent.

2005-05-05T14:37:00.000-07:00

Ceefax's main page. Got this off Ceefax.tv. Great site.

Teletext election coverage

2005-05-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

It's election night here in the UK and it's one of the things teletext can do very well. It can be updated quickly and has vast amounts of space at it's disposals.It also lets people access rather obscure information that will not be on TV. Continusly updated results of the Wosteshire poll? Not intruiging is it? Except to those who live in Wosteshire. Ceefax have opened the unused 700's for a 98 page election service. ITV's teletext has squessed it all into 20 pages but it looks pretty complete and a little better presented than Ceefax, but it usually is. Channel four don't do news apart from Finace and a two line news flash which will likley tell us tomorrow who won. Some may argue a better approach. Sky text have a section somehwere also but I doubt it can keep pace with Ceefax or teletext. Sky text is probably the slowest of the digital textes. BBCi has a spurious interactive angle. There just not very good at it and should give up really. But back to teletext.Maybe the best thing is I can put mute on and try to not be embarresed by Richard Wilson and Honour Blackman talking politics with a very, how can I put it, scantly clad female presenter in the London Eye. I can't believe I wrote that sentence. Overall I think Teletext on ITV are doing the best coverage. There comprehensive list of constenices shows what party held the seat before, precentage change and who holds it now. Maybe that will change though as results come in Ceefax may display it's extra depth in content that it usually beats Teletext with.

I'll track down my digital camera and stick up some pictures tomorrow, maybe tonight if I can. I won't bother with Teletext thing of the day as it's pretty clear what I think it is. So a surprise victory and the teletext face off between the big two. Will it be repeated in the some-might-say-more-important battle tonight? I doubt it, but we will see.(on teletext)

News,views and nothing more besides. Maybe lies.

2005-04-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Remember world teletext day is only three days away. Some people may notice that the date has changed some what since I made it up. Thats because I forgot about about it. I can't really say anything else about it. I'm going to try to include a teletext news section in every blog. I have news alerts sent to whenever teletext is mentioned in the news. Their have been alot more results than I imangined. One every other day so far. First below.

Teletext News:
The not-so-creativly named SwitchCo has been created to oversee the end of terrestial televison and therefore of the pure analouge teletext. The company Teletext( even less creativly named) are accully involved in the project. As are all the major channels in the UK as well as televison manufacturs. Apparently the current figures stand at 60% of homes with digital and 40 without. There are apparently a hardcore of digital refusniks( their words, not mine) who will never change.

It's unfortunate that so little focus will be on Teletexts demise when the last analouge signal is turned off. Even when Ceefax celebrated it's 30th birthday their where simply a couple of items near the end of the news and one page on the BBC website. Aside from it's pragmatic capabilitiys and great creative poetinal that is one of the things I love about teletext. Even in my earliest memories of teletext it seemed dated and doomed. It's been neglected by it's parents(at least in this country and many others) who have found more pleasue in launching crap TV channels(BBC, well Teletext too) or flogging the rotting carcas of the Holidays section on every medium possible. Watch out for the blimps and hyponotists next. Anyway it's the ultimate tradgy story. The once much loved and appricated service has slid into obscuity and will more likley die with a very drawn out wimper. It's the sort of gulity pleasure we get from seeing formerly all-conquoring movie stars reduced to opening supermarkets or making cameos in cartoons.

I relise that that was nore my own opinion on teletext than any kind of news but it's important to explain why I bother writing this. I hoping to make someone give their own opinion of teletext every week in a coloum like thing. Only a few of my friends have opinions about teletext though so I may have to start to harass people on the internet.

Teletext feature of the day-planet sound-350 channel four teletext
Comprehensive music news for all types of music. Their opinions section The Void is also one of the only places people discuss music intelligently. Oasis esspecially are treated with more than a few hackyned cliches while they briefly stop referring to Pete Docherty as Junkie Rocker as he has been crisented by the press. And sometimes kings of bland Thom York and Matt Bleamlly are not treated as the saviours of something or other.

Vroom!

2005-04-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

New teletext section C4 text service. Motering as you may have guessed from the title. Offers lots of dealer information, used cars for sale and motering news in genrel. Looks pretty good. Also their is now a new highest page in British teletext (if you exclude 888 for subtitles) in 798. Although it just seems to be some sort of techical jargon. I'll stick a picture up tomorrow and maybe a full review of the new section.

SUPPORT WORLD TELETEXT DAY APRIL THE 18TH!

Text news

2005-04-04T17:03:00.000-07:00

This a picture I've been hoping to capture for a while. It seems to be a placeholder for ITV teletext pages. Scared the hell out of me when I first saw it. The little A like symbols look a bit like the aliens out of Space Invadors.

I should probably admit I made up World Teletext day. I noticed the clock had slipped past mid night and into April fools day as I browsed the blogger pages. There most definitly should be a world teletext day though I'm sure you will agree and I plan to press ahead with celebrations anyway.

Theres a few snippets of Teletext news in the UK. The pilot area for the big anolouge swich off that is due to be compleated by 2012 has had it's anolouge TV signal, and therefore it's teletext, cut. I forget the name but it's somewhere in middle england. And I'm not talking about class boundries. Though I'd suspect one of the richer areas was choosen for the scheme as it's likley to be more succesful where people can afford digital televison. The other teletext moment I noticed this week was how well it can cover the news. When the Pope died it was, rightly, pretty much the only thing in the televison news and the papers also devoted a number of pages to it as well. Ceefax covered it particully well. It could cover the story and include profiles of the pope, tributes to him etc in only around 7 or 8 pages. Because of the power of sub-pages. This means the rest of the news section can function normally. This is important. If anyone remembers the day the Queen Mother died or maybe it was the funrel, it simarley took over the news. A leaked goverment E-mail revealed plans to release some bad news/statistics on this day as no-one would notice. The sender was sacked. But would she have been if the story hadn't of been made public? I doubt it. Although Itailain Teletext did make something of an error when it claimed the Pope had fallen into a coma, this was reported worldwide of course and later dismissed as rubbish.

Another item I meant to mention a few days ago shows the BBC getting all possieive over Ceefax, their teletext service. A dutch consultant who has a fondness for Ceefax asked a friend of his in Britain to capture the pages in a PCTV card(don't ask me) and post them to a server which can then be searched in a simlar way to Google. Theres an good article on it I'll link to in the sidebar. So the Ceefax pages has become one of Hollands most visted sites and the BBC are not happy. They say it infriges on copyright. The counter-argument is that it is essentially the same as Google. It links information owned by someone else. The BBC don't lose any money so you can't really see why they care but I suppose thats their problem. I just found the web-site and it is very good. It also carries the Irish Republics main teletext service Artel. Who are much cooler about it. I don't get RTE(the station which carries Artel) so I'm very happy about it.

Teletext feature of the day-Sci-Tech news-Ceefax
Great little pages with often strange stories from the worlds of science and technology. This often spralws out into astrlogy and nature though. Stories that are important but are stuffed away because people are more interested in a 2p rise in stamps or how fat Kirstie Allie is.

World teletext day

2005-04-01T18:00:00.000-08:00

18th of april. Tell the world. This is accully an established day set up many years ago to get people into teletext when it was a brave new thing. It's slipped away recently behind national reading day and and anti-poverty year. But teletext involves reading and the cynics always say only the poor and old read teletext. And I'm sure theres a national old person day somewhere. I ask you to write to any teletext fourom and inform them of this day. I only learned from a website which wasn't accully about teletext. It was some music thing talking about some of the odder things of the seventies and eighties, national(Okay I added the world bit) teletext day being one of them. I'm afriad I didn't take the site adress but I clearly remember the date. In fact I wrote it down somehwhere but to my surprise remembered it.

Thats all for today. My next post will probably be another guest nation, maybe Poland.

2005-03-29T11:07:00.000-08:00

Subtitle ad and teletext holidays web wing

2005-03-29T11:05:00.000-08:00

Early subtitle

News: Teletext changes

2005-03-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

The word revamp is commen one in the world of teletext. Recently this means: We're getting rid of stuff but replacing it with adverts. The main thing is this time that regional news is being removed from ITV. It is being relanuched on Five but considering tht few outside England can recieve that channel on terrestial it's not going to be seen by many. Ironicly it's being relanuched with a all regions rather than just the one you live in. Considering it will be seen by only three regions it shouldn't be too arduous. Maybe that was there plan all along.....

Some other entertainment pages are being moved too. And renamed. Oh and with such wit! Total entertainment on ITV is losing the word total. However they make up for those five characters with Lifestyles your name. Wait for it. It's your life! Without the exclamation mark. So we can assume Teletext is run by latter-day Bon Jovi fans then. Theres also going to be a new horoscopes section by the mystical Majore Orr. I never knew if she was a real person or Bamber Boozler type figure, only exsisting in text. Mind you it would be great if Bamber Boozler was real. You can find a full list of these changes and where there happening on p270 on channel four. It's also somewhere on ITV and most likley on Five too.

Despite a slightly cyincal note throughout that I am pleased some interest is at least being shown in teletext and they havn't complealty given up. I did find a faulty page last night. Quite a rarity on teletext. Despite large banners claiming "THIS IS A TEST PAGE" cheap flights on Majorca where stuck in the middle. Unfortunitly I couldn't find my camera. I relise that could be interpreted as sarcasm to anyone but the avid reader so let me assure you I'm being sincre in my disere to catch those magic teletext moments. Now that was a touch sarcastic.

If your stuck for something to do tonight and you live in the UK you may want to join me in watching the clocks go forward on teletext. I belive in happens at 2AM. Go on. Just sit back and say "I promise I'll be less sad next week-end."

TELETEXT feature of the day- Family Tree-C4-P154
A practical use of teletext. This alows people to track there family trees through others knowledge. Like those internet sites without the extortionist fees. Theres also a missing persons page near it. I'm not at all interested in tracking my family tree but if I were this would be far more useful than the net as there are few cenus records for Ireland. Big fire appartently.It's taking a while to find the page number here indeed I think i've missed it. A lesson to be patient and not to go flicking to other pages. Found it! But you already know that.

Gallery of cult text

2005-03-24T16:40:00.000-08:00

Below are three shots of the teletexts icons mentioned in my Cult text post. There are more but you'll find pleanty of digitiser shots littered round the net.

2005-03-24T16:39:00.000-08:00

If teletext ever did a TV special this man would be a shoe in for host. It's old lego face himself. Bamber Boozler.

2005-03-24T16:36:00.001-08:00

The logo of Mega-Zine. Arch rival of backchat

2005-03-24T16:36:00.000-08:00

An old backchat front page

Pop text

2005-03-24T15:21:00.000-08:00

Yesterday cult text was exaimed. I now relise that the golden age of cult text was really some years ago when teletext wasn't quite sure of what to do with itself and tried some odd things for short periods of time. See telesofware which probably should have been included. You'll find it in the excellent and only-known-to-me database of teletext that sits in my sidebar under the title history of text. It doesn't work but by the time I write this it should. All you have to do is remove the extra http:// at the beginning of the adress.

Today is Pop Text day. No not pop tarts that's something else. Pop text is the teletext that has made a significant impact upon society. It has been remarked upon by the media and the masses alike. Interestingly most of the Pop text examples are from ceefax in contrast with the Cult text which hid out on C4.

Teletext holidays-p200-ITVBy far the most obvious example of pop text. An inclusion in the dictionary can' t be far off for teletext holiday. In the digital age it has florished with it's own TV channel and services on digital text. If you accully read the offers there not as cheap as there made out to be. Well there always seems to be one which you will inevitbly miss and have to watch the 107 page loop again. Until a few years ago may have been cosidered cult text but TV ad's and flashy web-sites have propelled it further into the nations conciousness as has an extremly funny Peter Kay stand up act.

Football results-pages vary see 302-Ceefax
Many football fans will tell you the tense trauma of watching your teams fortunes on teletext. Waiting for the page to come round again, hoping and praying that there will be a late goal or six. Becoming less popular with the event of Sky Sports News and other live from the ground saturday programs that keep you up to date with all the latest blah, blah,blah,blah. Still relvent to millons though and though popular media has only passingly noted these hallowed pages (Gary Linker famously said watching Wimbledon would be more interesting on Ceefax) they Pop text status is well deserved in my book.

Subtitles-p888-All services
This may be pushing it a bit but they certainly are popular with the deaf and undeaf alike. A know many people with full hearing who choose to watch programs with subtitles. I can see why. I can't explain why but I've done it myself many times. It's strangly compelling. It has also been thrust into the spotlight by it's mistakes. The live news updates are tricky ones to cover I'm sure and there have been incidents there. The most recent one I remember though is when on The Weakest Link Anne Robinson called someone a "Dim-wit"(think that ws it) and the subtitle read Prick instead. There was public outrage. This is mainly because the public has nothing better to do. See America where there is an even greater public who don't even have teletext to while away their time and how wound up they got about Janet Jacksons nipple. Subtitles where the original purpose of teletext so we should all be very greatful to them. And many of you are. Hence they are Pop Text.

Now and Next-p120 on Itv+C4-p606 on both Ceefax
I can't really talk of any social signifgancw with this one. nor has there been much media refernce to the humble function. However it is likly the most used page on teletext. Just like roncell it does exactly what it says on the tin. It tells you what is on terrestial British televison now and next. And it doesn't even take up a full screen.

Cult text

2005-03-23T15:57:00.000-08:00

The other day I searching the internet for teletext information (Boredom and not wanting to do coursework in cas your asking.) And I found that there were a few pages that would get responses much more than others. Also they could be split into two groups if you so wished, Cult Text and Pop Text. Cult text is the letters pages with a tiny following but a following is something most Teletext pages don't have. And if you have a look you'll find attempts at internet covcersions or simply sites devoted to the page. Pop text is the text that has seeped into everyday life and society. The best example being Teletext holidays which everyone knows of and has been extenivly used in a Peter Kay stand up act. Today I'm talking about Cult text though and thats a different animal.

It's pretty hard to define what is cult and what isn't but my criteria will be that it must be mentioned when I search Google(I prefer Yahoo! but Google does give more results) and I must have heard people talk about it in real life. Nearly all of the cult pages seem to be to channel four mainly as it's got alot of free pages as it has very little newsor sport. If you wish to make an addition feel free to add a comment. So here is an examination of the cult pages of all British teletext services(excluding Five which I don't get on anolouge) No particular order here though I may choose a winner later.

Backchat-Ceefax 1-P577Looks like this will be Ceefax's only entry and even it's dubious. I have heard it mentioned in real life but the Internet only threw up people who hate it. Mostly Mega-Ziners who we'll get onto later. It's been around since at least the mid-ninties and does have a few regular writers though the short coment system means you don't really get to know them. I believe they should be cult though ig only because people on the pages call themselves backchatters and chat to the editor. A sure sign of a cult. Or maybe Backchat is the ant-cult text. Hated by everyone for no real reason, like Geri Halliwel
Mega-Zine-Chanel 4-p382 Got far more responses than anything else. Many broken web-sites but still. A realitivly obscure page on 4 which has a very devoted following. A proper letters page means the regular writers get far more of their personality across. Of course the most obvious difference between Mega-zine and other letters pages is the bizare abstract humor that lies with-in each little. Sometimes their not at all funny and are just gibberish. But even then it's great in it's own way. Right now I'm looking at a letter from Farmer Jaws( Usually referred to as Farmer Jack) who has decided to turn into a shark as he dubiously claims they never get ill. Prehabs most importantly a teletext shark has been drawen beside the letter. In case you forgot what one looks like. Not that the drawing would help. The editor always responds in the banners usually reserved for refernes to other pages or ads. It also avoids the twatish supoirty complex that adorns so many intenet message boards(see the Football Manager fourms, I used to use them but the people are just unbearbale) I can't praise it enough. Well I could but I won't. Most Ziners as their called seem to demiss backchatters is idiots and despise the fourom itself.

Bamber Boozler-CH 4-P140Many refernces to this on the Internet. Most remember being addicted to it at some point or absolutley hating it. I did hate it mainly as my Dad isisted we played it whenever we went to my granda's house(we didn't have teletext) but after a sabbitical I can now appricate what an excellent waste of time it is. He was wearing a green coat this week for St Patricks day. Classic. He used to have a son, Buster Boozler who did a kids version of the quiz but I havn't seen it in a while which is a pity

Digiester-C4-No page but replaced by the much worse but, to use sporting cliches, Ernest and workmanlike. Steady and Solid.The now defunct channel four games review section. I only seen it a few times but it often strayed from games to write strange little jokes that involved the reveal button. This was appeartly hated by the teletext management who tried to destroy it repeatly, attempts where stopped(I should use a better word but it's getting late) With 1.5 millon viewers weekly before it closed in 2003 it accully got better ratings than alot of the crap the BBC churns out which often records zero viewers. An early ninties creation of Mr Biffo he eventully left in 2003 to write childrens TV amost other things. I'll stick I link to a web-site with it's history. It's an intersting story told in a very digiester way. For the record the first time I heard of digiester was around 2001 when a PC magazine I was reading said it was "A humorless page run on the poor mans internet, teletext" the word dated was also used but I forget where. I later found out this was jealously by a team of people who couldn't define "Interesting" with flashing neon lights.

The Void-p352-C4- Great fourm for music discusson, both obscure and mainstream. Well I say mainstream mention Britney Spears and you likly to be maulded by text wolves. Which surley must exsist. Or not get published. Usually an interesting top 10 list. Yesterday it was 2 letter bands. It's lso quite funny, the whole planent sound thing has a very laid back style of writing. What keeps teletext alive. Much like Mega-zine hates backchat The Void hates The Vibe. Broken down to the lowest level I suppose it's just that the Ceefax services boast more normal people talking about more normal things in a more normal way on a more noraml teletext service. The Void does serve a purpose though, something which can't really be said of Mega-zine(apart from keeping strange people of the streets) and it's the best place on teletext for intelligent music discussion and to discover new bands. The Void has it's fair share of idiots though who believe they know everything about music. They are ususally savaged by readers in the next edition though and rarley come back.

Winner? Oh let's leave that for tomorrow. I'd say it's Digiester(which is damm hard to spell, so theres one point agasint it) and Mega-zine(which has a Z point for) I might stick up some pictures later if I can get money on my phone. Tomorrow Pop text. Which will hopefuly not take an hour to write.

2005-03-18T17:15:00.000-08:00

The blurred view of the last gasp by one of my favorite pages. Cost 20p to send through my phone this.

The lingering death of TV review

2005-03-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

It's debatable if TV review is really exticent on teletext or wither it's just hiding under a different guise making occasional appearences. On Ceefax ,however, we have been left in no doubt. Near the beginning of the week a message in TV reviews regular place (p526,BBC1+2 if memory serves me correctly) saying thay the entertainment section was under going a revamp and that there was no plans for a daily TV review in the futre. The entertainment section looks far from vamped. Indeed Ceefax has barly changed it's appearance this century. I do have a picture of this on my phone but it refuses to hop onto my computer. I also have a picture of the ceefax placeholder page which is simply lots of little "A" like-but-not-quite-A's figures. A more costly email option is also aviable but that doesn't seem to be working great etheir.

I know this is a very UK centred blog on teletext but I'm afraid I simply don't know enough about other countries teletext to update. Also the guest nation slot is very time comusing and I do have something of a life to shamble through. So just an apology to anyone reading thinking "what an arrogent,xyenaphobic pig." Anyway I hope to post a little more regulary as I have some decent ideas for blogs. Remember keep reading that text! I'm sure I'll think of a motto soon. Suggestions welcome though as it has been sevral months.

TELEtext thing of the day!-Backchat-p577 BBC1+2
Short 2-3 line chats like this often work best when their about nothing in particular and backchat proves this. It's for children but it's cetainly streched and their are often people in their early twenties texting in. Has the ability to talk aout ice cream and manic depression only sentences away from each other. Would that work on the internet? No.

Guest nation day: Armenia

2005-03-13T12:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Text on Text's (or TOT's if your feeling playful) first guest nation feture. Here we will explore the virtues of world teletext. As with most things the USA has been flippant with our beloved teletext though this is mainly because of a techical issue with their televisons. I'm not sure on the techincal jargon but basiccly they have less lines on their screens. This would make teletext even blockier and little information could be stored on each page. But enough about those who aren't here. As well as being near the start of an alphabetical list of countries Armenia is also the first nation to have it's teletext service reviewed by TOT. Pictures of the service follow below. I must mention that I got most of my information of www.teletext.am where you can view nearly all teletext pages on HText.

Company name: Teletext LLC
Brodcast on:Armenian public televison
Lanuched on: Sometime 1998
Teletext name:H-Text
Lanuage: Armenian
Any evil digital text?: Not yet as teletext is still pretty new there and digital TV is not commen

Anything else?: Despite being on public televison there seems to alot of advertising on Htext. The 300's are basicly a text version on the shopping channel. Also although the teletext is not digital there is an interactive element. From 800 to 900 is The Casino where you can bet on text poker and the like. I thought it was just for fun but at one point it asks you to enter your the card number (credit I assume.) Their are around 45 pages of rules which I don't understand as I don't speak Armenian. Other interesting things include a phone book which I contains 45 pages. Most probably for for companies of some sort or goverment services. I also like the female magazine which is far more like a conventional magazine than most text services that claim the tag. It is 34 pages of pure text. No pictures and from what I can tell no sub-pages or links. More on the interactive front, Tetris is also aviable though the Itext I don't quite understand. I believe you ring up and pay for tetris then go to a special inteactive page where you play the game. This level of advancement is surprising considering the basic look of the whole teletex service ie few colours.Overall an interesting text service with alot of good ideas and an interactive element that adds to the fun of anolouge. Oh and if you want a job they need an export manager. Whatever that is.

Should point out all pictures below are not mine but are taken from Armenian Teletext provider Htext run by Teletext LLC.

2005-03-12T15:53:00.000-08:00

The main page of Armenias H1text

2005-03-12T15:52:00.000-08:00

Casino. In case you didn't guess.

2005-03-12T15:51:00.000-08:00

Phone listings on H-Text

2005-03-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

Armenian advertisment

Risen text

2005-02-13T16:35:00.000-08:00

I've decided to deley the guest nation teletext for a while as their is a not very suprising lack of information. The country shall be Solveina though. I've found out a bit already and it's quite interesting. Well, as interesting as the history of a smal europen countries teletext service can be. It seems they where(and are) great inovaters of teletext. I'll say no more.

I've added a new link today. It's to the online equivlent of Paramount text's mailbox. I think I've mentioned it before but mailbox was a letters page which was entirly made up of random drivel. Though the odd serious issue arrose. I remember the first letter I read on it was about someone who was feeling depressed. It certainly didn't set the tone though. You could spent around half an hour reading it and it was compleatly entrancing. You'd never be able to read it and accully understand what the hell they where talking about in one time round. Or two most of the time. I planned on contributing but my TV often lost in for months informing me there was NO TEXT. I could never remember the adress ethier. It ended quite soon after my arrival. A fragmented version of the last edition is probably still on the Paramount Comedy Channel( 127 if you have SKY digital in the UK) It's still fun to read but it definitly loses something not being on text. It can't really obtain new followers where as previously around 50% of the nation could access it. It's got that horrible internet messageboard exclusive club feel. Respected regulars, smileys( work of satan.) Mailbox doesn't have smileys that was just my example of the growing alfulness of internet message boards which I use to quite like. Moderaters. Another thing mailbox doesn't have. So check it out if you wish.

Teletext feature of the day-TV review-p135 ITV
I'm highlighted this because I believed it was dead. But it seems it was just pretending. It is under a section called coming up. And even the title says TV preview. But the article title reads "We review Joey."Sounds like a review to me.

The end is nigh or at least getting nigher

2005-02-09T15:31:00.000-08:00

Acutul news on teletext today. Well, for anolouge televison. The signal will begin to be switched off in 2008. It will be done region by region until a complete turn off in 2012. This would spell the end for classic teletext in the UK. At the minute only 60% of people have any sort of digital televison and the figure is unlikley to increase massivly over the next few years as digital buying has probably peaked. I was wondering though could pirate televison stations be set up on an anolouge signal? Brodcasting equitment would become worthless and could be picked up cheaply. Even weak anolouge transmitters could be obtained cheaply. So then the question is, could pirate teletext be set up? Probably not. As teletext requires a good reception to be readable so only small areas would be likely to recieve a teletext ready signal. There are others options for the continunity of teletext including the internet. Call me a purist but I think putting TELEtext on the internet defeats the purpose somewhat. As the government havn't confirmed this yet it's not offical but it's very likely they will. Then again 2012 is 7 years away. Even if Labour wins the next election they wouldn't nessacerily be in power for the crucial date.

Teletext continues to thrive in other nations ,of course, where full digialisation( did I make that word up or just spell it wrong) is still some way away. Indeed I'm going to be having a look at another countries teletext system tomorrow or Friday. Not sure which one yet but I hope to make it a regular feature so they'll get mentioned. Cause you just know Armenia's proudest moment would be to have it's teletext service mentioned on an unread blog.

Teletext thing of the Day-Turner the Worm-c4
A very strange childrens text comic. It's aimed at pre-schoolers but I laughed at every scene. Maybe it was just the idea of seeing a worm potrayed as a hero in a text-based comic trying to save the world from some alien thing. I didn't pay much attention to the plot. Watch it if you can!

High text

2005-02-07T14:49:00.000-08:00

Since I started this blog I've been doing a bit of research and found that despite age teletext is improving. A few years ago something called High Text was developed. Basicly an improved version of teletext that carries more colours, better graphics and can store more pages. That equals no flicking around and a very quick service. It seems no teletext service is willing to apply the service though as all engeries (and more importantly money) are centred on digital-interactive- PRESS THE FUCKING RED BUTTON NOWWWW!!! craze of the moment. It would also slow down the service apparently. Yeah, that doesn't seem to make much sense. Certain new televisons advertise high text though I'm not sure if that can work without the brodcaster trasmitting high text. As you've probably guessed I don't have High Text and had never heard of it till last week. I'll be checking all my friends TV's soon though. Anyone who knows more about it feel free to comment.

Teletext thing of the day!-Letters pages-Multiple pages-main 346 on ITV, 145 on Ceefax.
Something that for some reason has never been transferred to digital text. In fact the idea that Digital text is more interactive is let down by this. Admittly some of the opinions are, shall we say eccentric, but it's certainly entertaining. And if you want to know the opinions of conservative pensioners and bored poor people theres no better way.

Numbers and attitudes

2005-02-06T13:52:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things about teletext is the number system it operates. The beautiful well thought out posistions. On BBC1 the letters page is 145 on ITV 346. The polls are placed beside the letters so people looking for a barometer of opinion are in the correct place. On BBC the now sadly defunct And I quote page was also beside the papers page. Their is the opinions of the establishment.

Each text service also seems to try to reflect the channel it inhabits. Ceefax is vast,fast, diverse and informative. ITV teletext is flashy, colourful and selective over what it covers. C4 Teletext is quirky, alternative, doesn't have a proper news or sport section but covers music,films and computer games in great detail and is full of games and subtle humour. Whats my favorite? It depends. If I want information on something Ceefax. If I'm bored or can't sleep C4 Text because of it's iclusive magazine feel. I only really read ITV text when I want to read a poll or letters or sometimes sport. PText on paramount was excellent though I can no longer access it as my TV refuses to let me read anolouge text on Sky simply blaring "NO TEXT" in a red box. The mailbox was the only compleatly pointless letters page that resembled an internet message board. I beleive it is now defunct which is a pity. The only other example of a "teletext club" seems to be the deadfully named "Mega-Zine" page 382 on C4 text. Not near Mailbox standard for utter gibberish postings but pretty damm good and doesn't have the snobbish attuitude problem of internet fourm "regulars" cough: LOSERS:cough.

That was more a quick summupence of my love for text than anything else but I promise my next post will chronicle the happenings in the world of text.

Text feature of the day:
Ten things we didn't know last week.-BBC ONE and TWO, p129- A study of ten of the weeks stranger news items. Always interesting, sometimes dubious and occasionly amazing.

A brief history

2005-02-05T13:50:00.000-08:00

Hello. I created this blog a while ago but didn't really know what to do with it. After all theres no point me talking about somehting I know much less about than sevral hundred other people who has blogs on the subject. A moment of inspiration hit me earlier today however and I have know decided to report on what will probably be last days of Teletext. And by that I mean all anolouge text services in Britain. Well, hopefully there will be a few forign oddesys in time.

When I said a brief history though I also mean of teletext. I wasn't born when Ceefax first aired in 1973 so it's based on second hand information which there isn't alot of. It was joint research from ITV and the BBC which created teletext. BBC used Ceefax( phoniticlly See Facts) while ITV went with Oracle which seems to have been replaced by Teletext around the early ninties. Recently teletext has disapeered from nearly all Digital chanels and even the anolouge service is looking a bit neglected. It will definitly leave us when the much mooted anolouge swich off happens. Mind you, that was originally in 2006 and is now rumored for 2012. It will most likly go before then though as digital text imporves. (Still not near Ceefax but maybe I'm baised) That was very condensed and if you want more go to http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/. I took most of information from it anyway. The evening with Ceefax is amusing if immensly weird.

So that is all. I hope everyone can now appericate those clunky, ridiclously dated characters on your televison much more now.