Funnily enough when I just tried IE on XP (not on dial-up though) and went to bbc news it came up with an item and photo of
"Self service tickets"
Just the thing AH needs.
Anyhow nothing wrong with XP.
Also AH says nothing wrong with the ticketing website, it's been up and it's a band-width (sic) issue. So it's hit and miss as to whether you get a good connection as well as other the other issues that can go interwobbly wrong.
As far as some who got straight through - simple favourtism that's all.
I have a mate who is a life long Man Utd fan (he's also followed Notts around the country with me when we were younger). For one of their FA Cup finals he wanted me to go to Old Trafford with him to get tickets.
We set off early and were surprised when we got to the ground how small the queue appeared to be with a line of about 20 people heading into one turnstile and others heading back out of an adjacent turnstile.
The full horror of our misjudgement was apparent upon entering the turnstile where we could see the queue actually headed out of the concourse, onto the stands, half way around the terraces, then back inside again only to reappear but up a few floors, along the opposite terrace, back inside . . . again and then back out through the turnstile that we saw people exiting on our way in.
I think we queued for about 5 hours! obviously I had nothing better to do with my time because i didn't even bother getting a ticket for myself! I suppose that was friendship for you lol!