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Due to a decade of tri-annual BBC2 exposure, dogged Dantean circuits of provincial comedy venues, conscious manipulation of vulnerable broadsheet opinion formers and undeserved good luck, I am now popular enough to have caught the eye of touts or, as we now dignify them, Secondary Ticketing Agents™.
In miniature, Sajid Javid's approval of touts is part of the same ideology that sees every available inch of public life exploited for profit, every transaction monetised at every possible point, from energy to entertainment, often at the expense of those least able to afford the surcharges.
The touts may have Sajid Javid in their back pocket.
I managed to track down the individual touts selling tickets for my London run of shows, and then banned them from further purchases at the theatre.
Culture secretary Sajid Javid has said that ticket touts are "classic entrepreneurs" and their detractors are the "chattering middle classes and champagne socialists, who have no interest in helping the common working man earn a decent living by acting as a middleman".
How can Javid legitimise touts , making access to the arts prohibitively expensive for many, and yet also be the culture secretary responsible for the simple act of getting people through the doors to see stuff?
I love how you can go from the proud owner of brand new car to an okada (commercial motor bike widely used for transport) passenger overnight... Lord, I love the Area Boys (street touts).
Mr Bush, who touts himself as a free-trade president and who pushed for the launch of a new global trade round, has nonetheless been happy to slap on protectionist tariffs.
Alton Wright, Director of Verbal Branding & Naming (being a professional namer, he is keen on the ampersand) at Landor Associates in San Francisco, touts Agilent, the name he developed for a spin-off of HP (as Hewlett-Packard was in prouder days).
First, in scale and co-ordination: foreign-policy watchers suggest the prime minister may be emulating the French, whose firms and ministers present a common front, and whose president actively touts French products.
It is true that the Left tends to prioritize human welfare over the loaded concept of free trade, but The Economist itself claims the same moral interest when it touts such trade as the antidote to world poverty.
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The primary grammatical function of "touts" is both as a verb , indicating the act of promoting something, and as a noun , referring to individuals who aggressively sell something, especially tickets. Ludwig confirms its usability in English.
Expression frequency: Very common
