The quintessential English art?

A number of years ago I was watching 'Have I Got News For You' and one of the items was a story on how foreign students coming to the UK for the first time were being given lessons on 'queuing' (or waiting in a line for my friends across the Atlantic). I laughed at the time, but sure enough it was true - here's the BBC story.

Apparently queuing is a quintessential English art. Oh really? It must be a 'lost art', certainly 'round my manor. No one at any of the bus stops pays any mind to 'who was there first'. Of course, I notice this most when I'm the sole person waiting for a bus. Like a good citizen, I form an orderly queue of one. Then other arrive and fail to stand behind me. The bus pulls in halfway down the queue, and NOT at the actual bus stop post where I am standing. Clearly the bus driver has to take some blame here.

Sometimes I feel like yelling - 'excuse me, where any of you here first?', but then think better of it as I'd rather not be knifed or shot or looked at as if I was some sort of mental case. I can sort of forgive this behaviour on places like Oxford Street where the whole stretch of it is one giant bun fight, but where I live I just can't abide it.

What put me in mind to write this was two people, or 'queue jumping bitches' as I like to call them. One in Starbucks yesterday morning. I'd already had a nightmare journey in to work thanks to the Central line going tits up and this woman, headphones blaring away, waltzes past everyone, and then the person at the front of the queue says 'oh, after you'. I couldn't believe it!

Then today, at the post office, I'm at the head of the queue, corralled by those tensile ropes and posts, with about five people behind me. A middle aged woman ignores all that, and the automated 'Cashier number 4 voice', walks right up to an empty wicket and begins her business like none of us were there! The staff just served her as if she was next.

These two women were British and should 'ruddy well know better'. Maybe queuing lessons should be given to British people instead of foreigners.

For the time being though, whenever it happens, I'll just roll my eyes and mutter under my breath 'tsk, honestly'.

Now THAT is quintessentially English.

Doorway To Hell

Yikes - it's April and I've only had one entry so far. That's not very good is it? I must admit I've been stuck for ideas. I'm not really one to simply write about my daily life, although many bloggers do, like my friend RetroGoose, and I enjoy reading hers very much, but then she is a professional writer and I have no doubt she could write an enthralling blog about the simple act of making toast.

So, I must do better. I've been surfing around the net and found there's loads of sites for people with brain block like me that supply ideas for blogging. We'll see. Or I could stop using Facebook quite so much.

One thing I keep meaning to write about is the laziness of people. In particular how people act when approaching a set of doors a building. It seems they will automatically head to the one that is left open, even if there's a queue to get in or out of said open door. I see this ALL the time at the West One Centre at Bond Street Station.

At the main entrance there's three sets of double doors. The left set has a sensor that automatically opens them, the other two sets are manually operated, in other words the Herculean task of pushing or pulling it open is required. More often than not, one of the doors on the right side is wedged open and it just beggars belief how many people will walk towards that one to the point of having to wait to get through. Now I know this only takes a few seconds, but for gawd's sake, what is wrong with pushing open the adjacent door to get in or out?? Clearly a large majority of people are unclear on this concept.

I despair for humanity, I really do.