End of the line? Queueing apps threaten the greatest British institution
Name: The queue.
Age: As old as Britain.
Appearance: The only system this country has left to be proud of.
You’re not going to like this news, then. Why? Is someone pushing in somewhere? Show me who. I want to tut at them.
It’s worse: the queue is dead. I thought that, if anything, lockdown had only strengthened the position of the queue. Queueing up outside supermarkets has been the only thing to separate us from the animals.
I’m afraid you live in the past. What are we replacing it with? Nebulous crowds? Yuck.
Virtual queueing apps. You book a slot on your phone, and wait in your car until it calls you in. Sainsbury’s and John Lewis are trialling them. Oh, like those buzzers in cafes that vibrate when your food’s ready?
Yes. I hate those. How dare they assume that we want to sit down with our friends when we could be standing at the counter, looking at our watches and sighing while experiencing lowlevel lumbar pain.
Wow, you really like queueing. Of course I do. That’s why theme parks exist. Nobody goes there for the rides. They go there to spend 90 minutes getting sunburned in a queue next to a succession of wasp-filled bins.
Yes, but that’s summertime queueing. It’s summer.
But it won’t always be summer. You think that people will be less amenable to social distancing rules when it’s cold, dark and rainy?
Exactly. Well, tough. Queueing up in bad weather is even more British than queueing up in the sun. You shouldn’t even qualify for citizenship if you can’t actively feel the onset of a cold because you’re too polite to barge into a shop.
Technology changes things. You either have to adapt or die. At least I can console myself with other traditionally British hobbies.
Such as what? Like passive-aggressively telling an entire train carriage to move down the aisle the second I get on.
Nope. Social distancing. There’s loads of room on the trains now. Oh. What about speaking loud, slow English to people on holiday instead of bothering to learn the local language?
Foreign travel? In this day and age? Sitting alone at home, becoming fearful of an outside world I’m losing touch with more and more as each day passes?
OK, that one you can still do. God save the Queen!
Do say: “Queueing has been replaced by wearing masks in our cars outside shops.”
Don’t say: “Are we a nation of getaway drivers now?”