On a sunny morning in London’s West End, I witnessed grim events unfolding in a cashpoint queue. Crucially, there were two cashpoints in close proximity, and the banking world has, so far, failed to supply a code of acceptable behaviour for a dual-cashpoint situation. Should there be one queue, for both machines? Or a queue at each machine? We had all silently agreed on the former, only for a confident bloke in a suit to turn up and immediately walk up to the second machine. Cue groans of disgust from those of us that were waiting patiently. “What’s your problem?” said the man. An American girl in the queue appointed herself as our spokesperson. “You’re British, and you don’t even know how to queue!” she shouted. But he wasn’t having that. “It’s because I’m British that I know how to queue,” he replied, haughtily, while punching in his PIN number. I’m also British, and I couldn’t handle the confrontation, so I abandoned my place in the queue and walked off.
This event, thankfully, is far from typical. Most citizens of the UK are brought up to understand that “first come, first served” isn’t just a pointless rule created to ruin our day; it’s a central tenet of a complex moral code of which we’re strangely proud. Teleport us to, say, Naples, where the rule is “first to bellow ‘Senorina!’ and barge their way to the front, first served”, and we’d watch the ensuing chaos with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. (Naturally, we wouldn’t complain – mainly because the phrase “Excuse me, there is a queue here, you know” has no Italian equivalent.) We don’t see a queue as an inevitable and irritating consequence of demand outstripping supply; we almost relish the prospect of standing in one, to the point where, if we turn a corner and see one, we might utter the phrase “oh god, look at the queue” with a mixture of recognition and surprise, coupled with a sliver of relish – even excitement.
This underlying enthusiasm of ours can turn queueing into a social glue, even a pastime, and this has been much in evidence of late. The opening of a flagship Primark clothes store on Oxford Street last month saw enormous, snaking queues, although this well-ordered structure quickly broke down when the doors opened at 9.45am and was replaced by stampeding, rioting and people wandering around in their underwear and trying on trousers in the aisles. (We may lead the world at queueing, but graceful shopping isn’t necessarily our forte.) Sainsbury’s recent launch of an Anya Hindmarch shopping bag marked with the slogan “I’m not a plastic bag” saw slightly more upmarket queuers arrive from 2am with chairs and provisions in tow; some were even dressed ready to go to work once they’d snapped up their £5 bag. The unveiling of Kate Moss’s fashion collection ensured a queue of thousands of women outside Topshop last week, but also prompted a protest from a group of art students, who waved placards reading “sheep” and “baaah” to protest about the follow-the-leader mentality of the British public. In creating a demand for a product, retailers are obviously aware that contriving to create a large queue for it will, in itself, multiply our interest – almost to the point where mass psychosis becomes evident. “If they’re queueing,” we ponder to ourselves, “then maybe we should be queueing, too?” While some shoppers exiting the Kate Moss launch offered a muted reaction to the clothes – “they aren’t very well made, and aren’t even that exclusive,” complained one – the queueing itself was deemed to be “quite fun” – indicating that having to wait to own something only adds to its perceived value. Impressive claims made recently regarding Boots’ new Number 7 Protect and Perfect Beauty Serum prompted widespread interest in the press, but as soon as lines of tired, dermatologically dissatisfied people started forming outside stores in the early hours of the morning, all of them hell-bent on defying the aging process for the knockdown price of £16.75, the notoriety of the product was assured.
But my mid-morning wander up Oxford Street saw none of these legendary mega-queues in action; evidently, even the most dedicated queueing fanatic needs to abandon their place in line at some point, march off and earn a crust. The Boots sales assistants stood chatting about the earlier influx of customers, and over at Topshop the queues were back to regulation length. This gave me the chance to stand back and observe some important queueing etiquette – namely the distance between yourself and the person in front. Stand too close, and, as one unlucky girl found, you get a faceful of hair as your neighbour executes an essential, head-flailing grooming manoeuvre. Leave too much of a gap, and you’ll incur the wrath of those behind you, despite the fact that the gap has no bearing on their place in the queue whatsoever. “Excuse me,” hissed one girl, as she saw a gap a little way ahead widen alarmingly; the offender immediately snapped out of her daydream and moved forward a few paces. No reply was necessary; she knew that she just had to keep her wits about her, and not make the same mistake again.
Proper queueing, you see, requires intense concentration; all your efforts are focused on waiting for the moment at which you’ll be allowed to move forward a few centimetres. Rarely will you find people attempting to multitask. Anyone who has ever tried to fill in a paying-in slip in a bank while already in the queue to be served will know what I mean. It can’t be done. Writing, reading or singing along to ones iPod are regarded with suspicion at best, derision at worst. So, having abandoned my dual-cashpoint nightmare an hour earlier, I was relieved to find a neat queue of a dozen or so people peacefully contemplating their destiny in front of a single cashpoint machine. I joined at the back, stared straight ahead, revelled in the serenity of the queue, waited for about five minutes, took out £30, and swiftly moved off.
Around the corner at Marks & Spencer, the management have dispensed with the traditional supermarket checkout system – you know the one, you choose your cashier, then glare at the people in front of you as they rush back to pick up items they’ve forgotten, return to chat idly to said cashier and then drop all their change. This arrangement has been replaced with a single, snaking queue, marked out with an efficient network of queue enforcement posts connected by that woven synthetic stuff that seat belts are made out of. This makes the queue look incredibly daunting – the kind you might get for Rita, Queen Of Speed at Alton Towers – but no thrills are imminent, here; just the prospect of paying for a carton of Florida orange juice with extra “juicy bits”. At the end of the first corner, there’s a sign advising impatient shoppers that they should be served within four minutes; I turned this corner, and was confronted with the faces of those ahead of me in the queue, staring ahead, impassively. I caught the eye of a smartly dressed woman carrying a crayfish and rocket sandwich. I smiled. And I don’t know what possessed, me, but my mouth opened to speak. “Shouldn’t be too much longer, now”, I said to her. Rarely have I uttered anything quite as banal and redundant, but, then again, you can’t immediately start discussing seasonally adjusted rates of unemployment with complete strangers. She nodded at me, before turning her head to ensure that she never, ever caught my eye again. I suddenly felt ashamed at having broken an unwritten rule of the fast-moving queue. As far as taboos go, it must surely rank alongside talking to someone in a gym changing room when they, or you, or both of you, are stark naked.

These arcane queueing habits of ours seem to be regarded globally with the kind of detached, wry amusement that we’re also supposedly renowned for. Guides to British customs will discreetly mention that “queueing is a very British pastime”, and that it’s critical to observe the rules when paying a visit. Cultural commentator and humorist George Mikes even noted that “An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.” Many theories exist as to why this might be, but the one I particularly like is the idea of the queue as the great leveller. Whether you’re camping out overnight for tickets for tennis at Wimbledon or waiting to get your car tax disc renewed, you’re all in the same boat. No one has the right to push in; being beautiful, wealthy or well-connected means nothing once you’re waiting in a queue. A few years ago, a company called Q4U attempted to market to us the concept of paying someone else to stand in a queue on our behalf; they may as well have asked us to shell out for someone else to go on holiday. It’s not clear whether Q4U are still trading, but I strongly suspect that they gave up on us pretty quickly.
At a food stall in Covent Garden, an impromptu queue was forming that was neat, orderly, well-behaved and moving very slowly – the perfect opportunity for striking up a bit of queueing cameraderie. Indeed, my neighbour, Christine, was happy to engage in some idle banter. “Yes, I’ve been to this stall once before at lunchtime,” she said, “and the food was fantastic.” “So you’re happy to stand here, waiting?” “Yes, of course.” It’s unlikely that Christine and I will ever be holidaying together on the basis of this stilted exchange, but it gave a hint of the bonds that can form in a queueing situation. The communist government of former East Germany famously referred to queues as Wartegemeinschaft (literally, waiting associations), in an attempt to suffuse the entire queue with some kind of collective spirit; of course, you already have one important thing in common – you’re all waiting there for the same reason. But so many other things can cement short-term relationships with those around you – not least bitching about those who had the foresight to arrive earlier than you, and who are standing smugly at the head of the queue. In a nearby newsagent, Janet recalled queueing for 10 hours for tickets for the Cambridge Folk Festival. “That kind of queue is like a temporary community,” she said. “Or maybe a very static street-party. People kept places for each other while they want to the toilet, they struck up conversations, shared thermos flasks. There’s a bit of the old British wartime spirit in there –you know, endurance and adversity. Even if it is self-inflicted.” And if you queue for a major event, you’ll always have the ability to retell your story, and say that “I was there.” Tim, queueing in Pret A Manger, recalled one overnight queue he spent time in, while admitting that his tale was barely comparable to, say, waiting for the funeral of Princess Diana. “In 1984 I waited for 12 hours outside the Bournemouth International Centre to make sure I got tickets to see Frankie Goes To Hollywood,” he said. “I remember receiving unwanted attention from one of their roadies, and taking up smoking to pass the time. Then at 7.30, just before tickets went on sale, some big girls turned up and pushed ahead of me.”
Sometimes, however, our hunger for queueing evaporates and our ability to do it properly breaks down altogether. At a juice bar just off Oxford Street, a dozen thirsty people were gathered around the window in an ad hoc, scarcely organised manner, and the nervous glances they were exchanging gave the impression that conflict could break out at any moment – all for the sake of a peach and banana smoothie. On the main road itself, there was the traditional queueing fiasco at the westbound bus stop, with weary shoppers knowing full well that an errant bus driver can, by overshooting or pulling up too soon, turn the person occupying pole position in the queue into a limping straggler. With everyone hanging back and hedging their queueing bets, I tried to find out the exact status. “Is this the queue for the bus?” I asked an elderly lady. “Yes. Well, sort of,” she said. “We’re all waiting for different buses, aren’t we.” Good point. Disorientated by this lack of order, I sought the reassuring environment of a nearby post office where nothing is left to chance, and where customers aren’t trusted to use their own judgement – they’re simply filtered down a pre-ordained route, and then harangued by the ECF, or electronic call forward, to make a swift movement to “cashier number three, please”.
This embracing of technology to assist our queueing habits has reached its zenith at the “Genius Bar” (or, as normal companies call it, the helpdesk) at the Apple Store on Regent Street. Once your place in the queue has been registered on a computer, you can sit down with your laptop – provided that it’s actually working and you’re not waiting to get it repaired – and surf the internet on the wireless in-store connection. “Have a seat,” suggested an amiable assistant, gesturing towards a number of benches full of glum looking people with malfunctioning hardware. “Just relax. It’s a virtual queue – we’ll let you know when it’s your turn.” I sat next to a depressed-looking Polish girl called Lucy. “How long have you been here?” I asked. “Twenty minutes,” she said. “Any idea when you’ll be seen?” “No.” “Sorry, maybe you didn’t really want to chat.” “No, not really.” Fair enough.
At the end of the working day, I anticipated some fantastic queueing opportunities at Euston station. Indeed, down at the taxi-rank, there was a gigantic queue – not of people, but of around 50 black cabs, with no passengers waiting to be taken anywhere. One cabbie, a chap in his fifties, stood by his taxi, staring into space. “Bit quiet, isn’t it?” I shouted over to him. “Tell me about it,” he said. “Where is everyone?” I asked him. “No idea, mate. Look at us. Honestly, there are dead bodies down here. People think cabbies are rich, coining it. But seriously, look at us.”
Upstairs in the ticket hall, however, queueing was rampant, despite the best efforts of Virgin Trains employees to try and get people to stop doing so. There was almost a compulsion to queue; after I’d been standing still for 15 seconds to observe the scene, a man stood behind me. I turned around. “I’m not in a queue,” I murmured. “Oh, are you not?” he asked. “No, it’s over there.” He wandered off, and was approached by a man in a red jacket – one of Virgin’s “floorwalkers” – who greeted him warmly. “Hello sir, you can use your card in the ticket machines over there, if you wish.” The man, however, chose to join the queue instead. I approached the floorwalker. “You’re not having much luck,” I observed. “Nah. They prefer to queue, to be honest. Most of them don’t even know where they are or what they’re doing half the time.” Sheila, another floorwalker, pointed out to me the “queuebusters”, or, more precisely, Virgin Trains employees wielding portable ticket machines. “We try and get people to use the automated machines,” she said, “but people are a bit scared of them. So the queuebusters provide another alternative.” Despite this, it seems that train passengers generally prefer to stand in a line, waiting. A woman by the name of Lynette was able to back this generalisation up with some hard evidence. “I once stood in a queue to get into a tube station, on the first morning of the millennium, for about half an hour. The queue didn’t show any sign of moving. Eventually, I gave up and walked away, to find that the head of the queue just consisted of some people standing around drinking. The station was shut. Everyone else had just obediently lined up behind them.”
There’s only so much queueing you can take in one day. At a post-queueing pint at the French House on Dean Street, Soho, it was a relief to be surrounded by people waiting to be served in no particular order. Gently sedated by alcohol, everyone was willing to trust each other to vaguely remember the sequence we were in. We didn’t want to hear an electronic voice intoning “Kindly proceed to barman number three, please.” And, thank goodness, we didn’t. Just a cheery voice, shouting “OK, who’s next?”