Will I ever get my hands on Glastonbury tickets?

Is anyone else out there in Glastonbury ticket-buying hell? I only ask as a little communal whingeing might make me feel better as I tear my hair out in pursuit of a pass to this year's festival.

It's now getting on for midday on Sunday - for the last three hours I have been clicking my mouse and pressing redial on my phone to the point of repetitive strain injury.

Things are not going well.

Demand is expected to be lower this year, due to the near biblical weather of last year's festival and a lack of really show-stopping headline acts.

But the £160 tickets are still proving harder to get hold of than a suitcase in Heathrow's Terminal 5.

For a few shining minutes at around 10.30am, I thought I might have cracked it. After finally getting through on-line through Seetickets.com I was able to put in my registration and debit card details in.

But after progressing to the final screen I was told my registration details had already been used. WHAT? How could this be? Had I drunkenly passed my registration code over to someone while on a night out - or perhaps someone had hacked into my account?

The most plausible explanation is some kind of IT error. I needed to press 'back' at one point on my internet browser, perhaps this tricked the overloaded ticket booking system into thinking I had already bought mine.

Essentially, this means the on-line option has now been ruled out for me. All that is left is trying to phone the hotline with one phone while trying to get through to the Seetickets helpdesk with the other phone.

This probably hasn't done much for my chances of staving off a brain tumour in later life, but there's no going back now.

Anyway - back to it. During the time I have spent writing this blog another thousand tickets have probably gone. Another 200 or so redials and I might actually hear a human voice.

1.15PM UPDATE: I finally have my tickets! Like an unfit man staggering over the finishing line of the London Marathon, I feel exhausted but with a strange sense of accomplishment.

It turns out that when the website told me my registration details had already been used, it was actually telling me I had just bought the tickets. I later got through my phone and got another pair just in case - this way I can get a refund if I actually bought two sets by mistake.

If nothing else, the whole experience has taught me the merits of persevering. But reports on the radio seem to indicate that there aren't too many left - if you're still without you'd better get redialling.

Are you trying to buy Glasto tickets? Let us know how you're getting on here.

Homeless hostel could be anyone's saviour

One conversation with Darren Maltby was enough to show me how easily any of us can fall through society's cracks.

Smartly dressed, well groomed and articulate, he could easily be mistaken for a busy professional as he relaxed in his flat in Daybrook.

But just a matter of days ago the 40-year-old father-of-two was living on the streets.

The flat in question is one of 21 provided by homeless charity Framework at a total cost of £2.1 million. People referred by council officials in Broxtowe, Rushcliffe and Gedling will stay there on a short-term basis to help them back to independence.

On my visit to the Elizabeth House facility this week I learned that cooking and budgeting classes are included for the service users. Darren, a qualified basketball coach and former school governor, doesn't need any educational support. What he does need is help getting his life back on track.

Two years ago his marriage broke up, with the resulting stress meaning he lost his job and quickly found himself without a place to live. He spent three months living on the streets in Nottingham before finding lodgings in Gedling borough - but after seven months there someone else needed the room and he was again homeless.

"I became very introverted," he said. "Having come from what I thought was a normal family with a normal job in the community being homeless was like nothing I ever envisaged."

I found it hard to credit that someone like this could have ended up with nowhere to turn.

But if his example shows anything, it's that even those with everything going for them can quickly spiral into darkness. Most people, including myself, would struggle to cope with such a dramatic change of circumstances.

It's precisely for this reason that Elizabeth House exists. It was not universally well-received - in January residents submitted a petition in protest at possible anti-social behaviour as a result of the site being located next to a children's playground.

Only time will tell how well grounded their fears will be, but there's no question about the importance of the service the hostel provides.

What do you think? Is Daybrook the right site for the new homeless hostel?