Why do the British queue so much?
Why do we always have to queue in this country? It seems that we are a nation that is obsessed with queuing for just about everything. I know, it's the British way and we have always done it. I can see how foreigners however, might find it all a bit irritating.
I think it kind of hit me the other day, when funnily enough I was standing in a queue at the bar, that we really spend a lot of our lives doing this. I don't mean we spend a lot of time in bars, although that happens to be very true as well! We stand in line for just about anything. Supermarkets, bus stops, taxis, the post office, the cinema and just about anything else you can think of will attract a line of people.
Why is it that it is considered appropriate to queue in some countries and not in others? For example the Chinese are notorious for queue jumping, but Russians who have experienced poverty and food shortages will queue quietly for hours or even days without complaint. Queuing is a really bizarre thing when you think about it.
We hate queue jumpers
But it is polite, and maybe that is why we British hate queue jumpers. Queue jumpers by the way, are something we deplore even more than the queues themselves. If you want to upset an Englishman, just push your way in front of him whilst he's queuing for his fish and chips!
Here's a though. I'm surprised us Brits haven't found a way of making visitors queue to view pages on a web site. There again, maybe we have if youve ever been to the BBC News site around lunchtime.
Comments from visitors
I find it very odd and also very indicative of the PC nature of broadcasters these days that no one ever mentions that mass immigration to London did away with queuing for buses. Bus queues here just disappeared over a period of about two years and no one ever said a word. What is wrong with that?
Anyone who suggested that the newcomers might queue and not just shove on were told that it was a racist suggestion as that was not the way things were done in their country. Of course the people saying this all have cars.
"Cultural sensitivity" is a b itch!
Bizaar isn't it. My mistake was actually their mistake that they did not queue where the signs showed where everyone should queue - the problem would have been avoidable.
I did not see the queue bending round the corner. Instead of the queue forming along the usual area, they formed and continued around the corner and behind a wall/pillar and of course I did not see it!
So I stood there without realising and this old g*t shouted at me. OMG! I jumped out of my skin and profusely apologised as I realised that around the corner were a few more people that I genuinely had not noticed.
I felt so bad and almost tearful because I had not realised that I was in the wrong place and the way he attacked me by shouting at me as if I did it on purpose. Why on earth would I just stand in front of people on purpose?
He was in his 70's and I was quite shocked at his rudeness.
People jump to conclusion and perhaps should have been polite about it.
You obviously haven't travelled into the centre of Leeds by bus and alighted at the Corn Exchange bus stops. Typically, as the door opens, a horde of marauding chavvy types off to the sprawling estate dumps of south Leeds and of all ages and both genders make a rush for the door. People trying to get off don't figure in their thoughts. Alas, this behaviour is all too common now amongst the lower end of the British social scale.
I love the look on a queue-jumper's face when someone pulls them up. Queueing is one of my pet hates, but I tolerate it. Queue-jumpers are another, but that one I do not tolerate.
Harsh But Fair - 29-Aug-10 16:14
Simples innit?
I have travelled to many countries and it is true that not many others have a nation of queuers. What they do have though is a free for all bundle to get on buses and trains and to get in anywhere else. There is no regard for people's personal space or indeed safety.
What is better, the reserved, altruistic civility of the British or a bunch of snarling dogs fighting for position?
I know which one I favour....
noneedforname - 9-Apr-10 13:21
I know - I often find that shoppers come up and stand right next to the self service till and wait until I'm finished. As if you haven't got enough to contend with - scanning the items, watching the screen, trying to remember your PIN, warding off the over-helpful assitant who keeps distracting you - without someone watching you and trying to dump their shopping down before you're finished. I told the last person to go away.
Sometimes, even when there is a visible queue, someone just appears from nowhere and takes a free machine before the queuer canget to it. Cue argument. And I have to say, the people who seem ignorant of the queuing system are pretty new to the country.
These things are going to cause a fight soon, and it may involve me.
err... because the rest of the world doesn't???





