Cheap opera tickets (but not for the likes of me)

The Royal Opera House has come up with a new wheeze to make itself appear democratic and inclusive and various other contemporary buzz words. It's selling off 100 of its best seats for a tenner each. The tickets - for seats that normally cost up to £175 - will be flogged 90 minutes before curtain-up on Monday nights, first come, first served. Sounds great, but really it's only any good if you can spend a day sitting on the pavement in Covent Garden. In other words, the people who get to buy these tickets will be students, assorted other layabouts and Japanese tourists who are prepared - and able - to queue for six hours. I suppose it's equality of a kind, but it doesn't seem fair to the vast majority of British people who a) live outside London and b) have to work in order to pay the taxes that go towards funding opera houses.