YOU will doubtless be delighted to hear that I have been signed up to be the only agency selling tickets for Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's one-off concert at Mr Kyp's in Parkstone.

My close relationship with Mr Springsteen - well, I once forced his guitarist Nils Lofgren to have his picture taken with me - means that I have been able to secure this intimate warm-up slot, the only one before his forthcoming world tour.

Tomorrow at 9am, my newly-created internet-only ticketing agency FleeceYou EveryWhichWay.com will be all fired up to meet what promises to be an enormous demand for the 300 tickets available.

Granted, I haven't actually got the tickets in my hand quite yet.

Okay, I haven't actually received a letter back from Bruce confirming the gig (but then again, he hasn't written back to say no) and the bit about the new world tour may be just a rumour.

But I'm sure Kyp and his team won't have a problem with it (when I get round to ringing and telling him) and I'm sure the badlands of Ashley Cross will offer the blue-collar rock superstar and his cohorts a rockin' good welcome (and a decent hot meal down at The Britannia).

Back to some semblance of reality, this week, thousands of people discovered they had lost out when the internet ticket agency TicketTout.com went in to administration, leaving them with no tickets for their shows and festivals and little chance of a refund.

Yes, I feel for every single one of them, but wasn't there a clue in the name?

Would anyone really invest their money in a company whose popular image revolves around a dodgy-looking geezer flogging over-priced tickets outside a concert venue.

It is rumoured that around 1.5 million pounds' worth of other people's money was sloshing around somewhere in this farce and very few tickets have been, or will be seen by honest punters simply wanting to enjoy festivals and concerts.

Of course, while there is a market place for tickets, there will be companies and individuals queuing up to make a fast and large buck out of the fans.

Indeed, if I were to put a pair of my imaginary Springsteen tickets up on eBay now, several hundred mugs would be bidding without doing any homework about the company supposedly in possession of their tickets.

Indeed, a trawl of the internet would have thrown up enough negative discussion about TicketTout.com, suggesting that the company was covered in little round bruises where people had been prodding them with 10-foot bargepoles.

Sadly, it's eBay that's abused as one of the prime tools in the touts' daily battle to rip us off and until it brings in tougher controls - perhaps a limit price above the face value might help - the gullible and naïve will continue to suffer.

Meanwhile, there's a very well-meaning and growing band of people (more than 5,000 at the last count) who have signed an online petition at www.stopticket touts.co.uk to trying and prevent further scalpings of the innocents via the internet.

Join in, at present, it's to be the only force trying to do something positive.