Adding up the comeback

We're told the extraordinary news that

An estimated 20 million people rushed to register for tickets to see Led Zeppelin

Twenty million? That's quite impressive. And, of course, we can verify this figure, can't we, because there will be twenty million registrations, right?

Um, no:

The concert's website has struggled to cope with demand, and organisers have asked fans to be patient.

So "twenty million" is a figure being used to explain away why the servers can't cope, rather than a fact. Even if there have been twenty million attempts to log on, there'd be no way to ascertain if that really was twenty million people, or one bloke with twenty million attempts.

Twenty million. That would be an astonishing number of people interested in going. One in three of the UK population. Now, admittedly, there will be interest from beyond these shores, but, really: not just twenty million fans, but that number logging on at once?

Meanwhile, Harvey Goldsmith ahs outlined his lottery plans:

Tickets for the show will be allocated by public ballot - a move promoter Harvey Goldsmith hopes will deter touts.

"We just hope and pray that those people who get a ticket in a ballot are just going to act accordingly," he said

Uh... so the idea is that you, um, win a ticket and then "act accordingly" - presumably meaning that when you sell it on to a tout, you organise a lottery system to decide who you'll flog it on to.

Goldsmith also warned fans who turned to internet auction sites like eBay or other unauthorised sources that they would have their tickets cancelled.

"They might have paid the money but they ain't going to get the ticket," he said.

So, steer clear of eBay, then. The message from Goldsmith is: sell your ticket without using a third party who'll reveal your details to someone else. It seems to be suggesting that Goldsmith would rather fans have to try their luck in unregulated markets than have at least an eBay paper trail to give them some degree of consumer protection. It's the same mentality that thinks its better for gangsters to sell heroin than to make it medically available for free to addicts - putting the fine detail of the law above actually thinking what would work best.