The last bastion of civilisation has crumbled

It is official, the British can no longer claim to be good at anything since it has now been recognised that we are bad at queuing. Of all the factors that can be considered to have made Britain great it is perhaps fitting that this most quintessential facet of our behaviour should be the last to fall. There will be those who will wonder what all the fuss is about but for the majority of the population who still observe this polite culture the news will come as a bitter blow. Short of being told that you are not the love God you believe you are, your baby has a face like a leaking beach ball or your driving ability is sadly deficient there can be fewer admonishments that can strike such a sensitive nerve.

This country has a proud heritage of queuing for anything and everything, at any hour and in any conditions. We queue at the checkout, we queue in traffic, we queue for transport, we wait in line for service, we queue to get in to places, we queue to get out. For the sake of saving a few quid we will queue in freezing temperatures or even sleep on the street if necessary. There are even those who have embraced it as an art form.

I am seriously of a mind to have 'Queue here' engraved on my headstone. There are bound to be those that will pass by and stop. It will be nice to have the occasional visitor though don't expect me to be the greatest of company.

Unless you live alone you will be aware of the morning queue for the bathroom, what a way to start the day! Least favourite of my experiences is the queue at the doctors. The last place I want to be when I am ill is in an austere waiting room surrounded by sick people. The receptionist has the demeanour of a prison warder and the only available seat

is usually between the guy with the halitosis and a hyperactive child with vomit stains down the front of their jumper.

Another place I dread is post offices, or day care centres for the elderly as they have now become. Normally the heating system is blasting out hot air in these establishments, even in Summer. When you have the temerity to question why it is on the standard response is a snarled 'it's broken' (the same response you get when you enquire about the photo booth, the copier, the cash machine or the service counter buzzer). I try to avoid pension collection day when I am busy though would recommend it to those who enjoy people watching. Viewed as a game of Russian roulette it can be quite revealing. Try to guess who will be the first person to leave the queue. Usually they will have realised that they have forgotten an important document, have calculated that they won't have enough time to complete the task during their lunch hour, or simply lost the will to live. The really unfortunate ones are those who have spent so long in the queue that when they get to the front of the queue they have forgotten what it is they came in for. 

 

There must have been a scientist or mathematician somewhere who has worked out a formula to locate the most irate person in any queue. I am neither but would imagine that the equation would be based on the length of the queue, the amount of time spent waiting, the person's age and the urgency of the task which would allow you to identify the individual most on edge and, taking it to the next level, allow you to calculate the optimal time before the average person 'blew a gasket'.

Queuing is just part of our way of life, no one likes them or goes out of their way to participate in them, they just happen and normally we just stand their, grim-faced, waiting our turn.

Strangely, the phenomenon of queuing is not universally appreciated, in many countries the concept of queuing is totally alien and viewed with disdain. Clearly the endeavours of our missionary forebears to acquaint our colonial cousins with this element of our culture fell on deaf ears. Ironic then, that it should be the UK Border Agency who highlighted the fact that the British were so bad at queueing. Apparently, for years we have had the wrong types of queue. According to their statistics we have been queuing in the wrong places at the wrong times, which is why they haven't enough staff to process the number of people entering or leaving this country. It should be pointed out that there are several sets of statisticians who can't even agree on how to measure a queue. Average waiting times for processing applications at some of the UK airports vary from 30 minutes to 3.5 hours depending to which organisation you believe. On that premise I am guessing that it will be a long time before anyone gets round to working out where and when they would like a queue to be formed.

On the subject of statistics, it has been calculated that the average person in the UK spends 19 days a year standing in queues for one thing or another. If you add on the amount of time spent stuck in traffic queues or waiting for transport to arrive this rises to 27 days, and if you include the amount of time spent on 'hold', or listening to Vivaldi down the telephone then this takes the total to 35 days. Over a month of each year is spent queueing. Its enough to make you 'blow a gasket', only I don't want to wait around for someone to turn up and fix it.

Hope springs eternal

I am not a great sports fan though there have been a couple of sports stories in the news recently that have touched me more deeply than I would have expected. In March Fabrice Muamba collapsed on the pitch with a heart attack during the FA Cup quarter-final match between Bolton and Tottenham. It took 78 minutes for the 24 year-old's heart to start beating again unaided. His recovery has been spectacular and last month he was able to make an emotional return to watch the re-scheduled match where he received a rapturous reception from an appreciative crowd.

This year's London Marathon was marred by the tragic death of Clair Squires, a 30 year-old runner from Leicestershire, who collapsed 1 mile from the finish line of the 26 mile race. A keen charity fundraiser who had only recently completed a climb on Mount Kilimanjaro she had set herself the target of raising £500 for the Samaritans charity through completing the race. Her untimely death struck a nerve with the public around the world who have since donated over £1 million towards the charity via her website.

Such tragedies are not supposed to happen to people in the prime of their life and you can only marvel at the way that people have responded to these 2 incidents. The fact that the response has been global is testament to the power of TV, the internet and the interest that these sporting events engender. I am particularly please that the Samaritans will benefit from the donations. The organisation may not have the high profile of the major health charities though their work is every bit as important and their staff just as dedicated.

The question that has crossed my mind is just why these 2 individuals should have captured the imagination is such a way. There have been other runners who have died during previous London Marathons and there have been others who have collapsed during football matches. Only last month Piermario Morosini, a 25 year-old Italian who had represented his country at under-21 level, collapsed and died during a Serie B match at Pescara. With due respect to those who have suffered none have prompted such a universal outpouring of grief and support.

The only reason that I can attribute to the Fabrice Muamba and Clair Squires stories is the predicament we now find ourselves in globally. With world finances in a mess, large parts of the world affected by armed conflict, political unrest, drought and famine and a great many of us facing financial hardship and uncertainty in the workplace it is perhaps understandable that we should reach out for any piece of good news. Maybe we need stories like these to bring a bit of balance to a crazy world, to focus our minds on what is really important. For all of us life is short, it is up to us to make the most of it in the time that we are on this planet, to take the opportunities presented to us and enjoy them as best we can, even when there are so many obstacles placed in our path.

I would like to think that the majority of people are intrinsically good-natured. With so much doom and despondency around just now it is reassuring that so many people have been so moved by these stories that they have been prompted to re-act positively.