Teletext
From ARFOPEDIA
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Teletext is what happened when some boffins realised that you could send some extra data along with the picture on a Telly channel.
[edit] CULT Teletext pages
CEEFAX - PAGE 148 - Daily paper review. Basically a witty rundown of the stories dominating the papers that day, with a similar summary of the papers on the continent on the previous page for those who want to impress a schoolteacher or elderly relative.
CEEFAX - PAGE 888 - Mere subtitles, but invaluable during Eurovision when the captioners go to needless lengths to put down the English translations of all songs sung in foreign tongues. Also funny to watch work experience kids fail to keep up with news bulletins and start writing stuff like "Yasser Arafat tody angrly condemned te UN" Not to be underestimated.
CEEFAX - PAGE 101 - The headlines, with the top story of the day usually granted to Page 104 and given a larger font than the rest of the headlines. During stories of large importance, such as a royal wedding, election or royal death, the presence of a fuck-off yellow line partitioning off the top section of the screen will indicate that this story merits more than one page. However, only the imminent approach of the apocalypse will prevent Page 124 from containing a light-hearted anecdote, usually the results of some humorous 'scientific' study.
CEEFAX - PAGES 303-311 (SATURDAY AFTERNOON) - Latest football scores, nuff said. Colour key: WHITE - goals, GREEN - sendings off (s/off) and missed penalties. All matches 3.00pm (Saturday) or 7.45pm (Midweek) kickoffs unless otherwise stated
CEEFAX - PAGE 312 - Football briefs. Those stories not important enough to warrant one of the preceding 9 pages. Also featured the pools dividends at the weekend. Dedicated to Barry Fry.
CEEFAX - PAGES 324-327 - League tables. With Lines and colours to indicate promotion, playoff and relegation spots, and teams already up/down/winners. Covers the Scottish leagues in six subpages, smugly giving the 14-team Highland League two.
CEEFAX - PAGE 338 - Vidiprinter
CEEFAX - PAGE 360 - Formula One. Everyone checks this, on a weekly basis. Even though there's maybe one sentence of news in it a month, on average.
TELETEXT (ITV) - PAGE 346 - Letters page. Populated largely by a group who have been humourously dubbed by some correspondents as "Teletext Tories". Letters on this page will bemoan the lack of discipline in today's schools, the decline of Blair's Britain, the 'War on the motorist', the lack of discipline in today's schools and the lack of discipline in today's schools.
TELETEXT (ITV) - PAGE 347 - News poll. A phone poll following a similar theme to the letters page, with callers registering their votes in their thousands to show their support for anti-EU sentiments and general dismissal of anyone under 60. This culminates in the end of year "Man, Women and Turkey of the Year" polls, where the winners will invariably be Tony Martin, Dame Ellen McCarthur and Cherie Blair every year. The sport poll was sadly discontinued some years ago.
TELETEXT (Channel 4) - PAGE 350 - Planet Sound. A music news service that is actually properly good
TELETEXT (Channel 4) - PAGE 150 - Fun and Games. Terrifyingly in-depth dissections of Poker and Bridge can be found here, but the centrepiece is undoubtedly BAMBOOZLE, Teletext's flagship high-tech quiz show. Hosted by the fictional character Bamber Boozler (often joined by tenuous relatives or acquaintances), twelve multiple choice questions are offered to the reader, with the holy colours each representing an answer. (Questions may or may not run on a certain theme, although this is usually confirmed by Bamber on the introduction page to the quiz.) It is also worth noting that the page numbers for answers are unlike any other Teletext or Ceefax page in the fact that they are hexadecimal. A popular form of cheating relies upon an old television being slow to find the correct page - simply flicking through the answers to see which one leads to a different page from the others can guarantee a correct answer so long as you do this before a page manages to load. Bonus points are available if you are greeted with a wrong answer and can answer a quick question, but the emphasis is firmly on getting the main questions correct first time. At the quiz's end, Bamber offers a humerous 'rating' for your performance, depending on how many questions you got right first time (honesty is required here), at which point a tap of any colour key will return you to normal Teletext. A sports quiz was sadly discontinued some years ago.
TELETEXT (Channel 5) - N/A - Channel 5 lost
