The British Art of Queueing
The media are currently using a lot of bandwidth
telling us how things are going to be different in the future as a result of this virus. In my opinion this is a waste of bandwidth as ‘the future’ has a habit of producing its own changes often without regard to people’s wishes or intents. However a little speculation as to the possibilities does no harm.
When I was a child the British were well practiced in the art of queueing, maybe this was a leftover from the shortages of the war or maybe it was developed over may decades I don’t know. It was certainly the case that there were many opportunities to queue for buses, cinemas, waiting to pay etc. and there was a lot of etiquette involved. For example a ‘U’ shaped queue within a bus shelter which placed the first in the queue next to the last, but all kept out of the rain. ‘Queue jumping’ could be discouraged/prevented with an appropriate glance, as could excessively loud conversation. One got the impression that this was a peculiarly British art as when one saw ‘foreign parts’ on the cinema news reels one did not see the same behaviour, in fact what one often saw could be described as a ‘devil take the hindmost surge’.
I wonder if such self control will still exist when queueing expands from supermarket carparks to pavements. I am currently thinking of three adjacent popular shops near here. If only two open then one queue to the left and one queue to the right, no problem apart from usage of the entire pavement and any passing pedestrian playing chicken with the traffic. However if all three are open there is absolutely nowhere for a third queue. I wonder what is currently going through the minds of the the three shop keepers/managers as they start to contemplate their reopenings?
The possibilities are endless but it would take a brave person to predict the outcome.