Peter Kay Live - don't make me laugh

I felt all smug late on Friday night when, upon arrival in Cardiff, I saw the new Peter Kay Children In Need video for the first time.

Featuring more than 100 animated children's television stars from down the years, it is indeed a work of art. In fact it's brilliant.

But the reason for my smugness was that, 18 months ago, I would probably have known no more than half the characters in it - and most of them were from my own childhood. However, I now know them all and regard them as my friends or, at least, it feels that way.

Barely a morning nor evening goes past for me these days without Peppa Pig snorting, Thomas the Tank Engine tooting or Roary the Racing Car screeching at me from the TV in the corner of our living room - accompanied by howls of delight from Jamie bouncing up and down about two inches from the screen.

The Children In Need video was a great idea from the genius that is Peter Kay and I would encourage you to buy it. But having said all of that, I must say, I have gone off him a bit since Friday night.

You may or may not know that, also on Friday, he announced plans to do four live shows in Manchester next spring - his first in seven years. Tickets were due to go on sale at 11am on Saturday.

So, at 11am on Saturday, I was sat at Wee John's PC in Cardiff all set to buy some tickets. I went on to the Ticketmaster site and my preference was the first night, the Tuesday. Unfortunately the website crashed.

So I tried again - the same thing happened. So I tried for the Thursday. Same thing happened. So, what about the Friday? Same thing happened.

Ticketmaster then put up an announcement to say he'd added another 16 dates to his run. Great stuff.

So I tried each date in turn, several more than once. Each time, the website crashed.

75 minutes later, I was no further forward and gave up.

Later in the day, I logged on again to find that all tickets were gone and, indeed, had gone within an hour of going on sale i.e. more than a quarter of an hour before I'd stopped trying.

But - and here's the thing - eBay, together with the now very large number of spiv sites that sell "spare" tickets, was teeming with literally thousands of them, all priced at a minimum of three times their face value.

I've since spoken to a number of friends who also tried to get tickets legitimately and found that not one of them was successful. But, clearly, a lot of touts and plain greedy bastards anxious to make a quick buck had a great morning.

Surely Peter Kay, as the star of the piece, had the ability to ensure that so-called "ordinary" fans were given every opportunity to see his show without having to pay some greasy-palmed thief for the privilege.

And I give one example.

Those individuals fortunate enough not to have their computers crash whilst trying to access the Ticketmaster site were allowed to buy up to eight tickets per purchase.

But unless you're a teacher or a scout leader (or a tout), when was the last time you bought eight tickets for a show? I certainly never have and a limit of four would have been given a lot more of yer man's genuine (and not rich) fans the chance to see him do his thing.

So I'm very disappointed and, as you may have noticed, more than a little bitter.

As a result, Peter Kay will need to be incredibly funny if my face is to crack next time I see him on our telly (assuming Jamie allows me to turn over). And he probably will be - which makes it even harder to take.

GRRRRR!!!!!!