Queue here

[Guy_Montag]

this being the British part of the board I think we need a queue to make us feel properly at home.

[julianer]

1. I'm sorry

I didn't mean to jostle. I'll just stand here, meekly.

[Guy_Montag]

2. Entirely my fault dear fellow,

after you, I insist.

[beam me up scottie]

3. American here,

get the hell out of my way and move over!

(what exactly is a queue?)

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. "queue up" = "stand in line"....

queue = line of people...(and it's pronounced "cue")

[beam me up scottie]

7. What I meant was what sort of significance

does a queue have for the Brits ?
Is it because they politely get in line without shoving, cutting in front of others and stampeding ?

[tenshi816]

23. That would be it, yes.

The concept even extends to lift lines in European ski resorts, while the French, Germans and Italians are trying to barge in right, left and centre.

I remember once attempting to queue at a bus station in Delhi. Didn't work because there was a free-for-all going on around me, with about 50 people all trying to push in to the ticket window at the same time.

[beam me up scottie]

24. You just described every

crowd I've ever been in in the US.
Driving here is just as bad.

[tenshi816]

25. God, I know - I grew up in Georgia

where I swear people can get a license to drive by mail order without ever getting near a vehicle (OK, I know it's not really that bad, but I've seen some piss-poor drivers there, especially on the expressway). I've been in the UK for many years now and honestly have to admit that I only became a decent driver after having lessons here (to get used to driving on the left side of the road) and passing the extremely thorough driving test.

Also, I just got back yesterday from two weeks in Florida. We went to the space shuttle launch and it took four and a half hours to drive the approximately 75 miles from Kissimmee to Cape Canaveral. Now, I do understand that there were plenty of other people who wanted to see the launch as well, but it still didn't explain why so many people were driving so badly (cutting up other drivers, not signalling, tailgating, constantly changing lanes, you name it).

I notice these things now all the more because I don't live in the States any longer.

This latest trip back, I noticed that in crowds the prevailing attitude seemed to be "if I don't make eye contact with you, then you're not really there at all and I can bowl right over you to get ahead of you". Or am I just being petulant?

[beam me up scottie]

26. No,that's exactly the attitude on the road.

It's gotten much worse since SUV's took over the highways, IMO.

It's much easier for bullies to rule the roads when they're driving a vehicle that's three times the size of a Honda.

I noticed the difference when I visited Germany, people actually stopped at stop signs and even took turns!!!

I was in total culture shock.

I dream of moving back to a town where I can walk or bike everywhere.
Driving is too much like doing battle these days.

[tenshi816]

27. I feel that British drivers are definitely more competent

than American ones, even allowing for higher speed limits. Yes, of course there are bad drivers here too, but overall I feel safer driving in Britain than I do when I visit the US. Maybe it's because the driving test itself is so much harder than the American one, that those people who pass it are more competent drivers from the get-go.

For example, when I was a 16-year old, my driving test consisted - seriously - of driving around a couple of suburban streets in Athens, GA. I didn't even encounter another vehicle, let alone something as (gasp!) complicated as a traffic light. Breezed through the written test.

I took my British driving test in London, in rush hour (I suppose it's always rush hour in London, though). You can imagine how different it was to my American test...

I also feel drivers here really are more polite (allowing for the exceptions to the rule - because there are always some people who are dickheads no matter where you go in the world).

Not living in London anymore, I don't know if it's over-run with 4-wheel drive vehicles, but there are a lot of them where I live (Yorkshire). Given the cost of petrol here, I don't see how anyone affords to run huge vehicles (I saw a Hummer a few weeks ago, the first one I've seen here).

If you like walking and biking, you'd love living in the UK.

[beam me up scottie]

28. I would love to emigrate to the UK.

It's unbearable here.

I honestly don't know if we can ever recover from the damage that has been done by this administration.

This country has been sold, lock, stock and barrel to corporate interests who happen to be in bed with the religious right.

[tenshi816]

30. I left during the Reagan years.

I had been so idealistic and optimistic before he was elected (I loved Jimmy Carter, still do, and would even if I weren't originally from Georgia). I never got why people loved Reagan - the man had been an actor for God's sake, why on earth did anyone believe he was ever telling the truth about anything?

At that time - 1980 - I was a full-time university student and a young single mother, and in just a few years I saw our already admittedly dodgy standard of living decline more and more. By 1986 I had had enough, and decided to emigrate. Don't get me wrong, I love America (it's why I came to DU, because my country is broken and the people here want to put it back together), but I've found peace of mind in Britain. The way of life suits me, because people generally aren't driven by materialism to the extent that many Americans are (yes, another huge generalisation, but it's one that I don't believe is too far off the mark - people quite naturally like owning nice things, but they're not consumed by consumerism, if you see what I mean).

There's also the sense here that everyone should be entitled to things like health care and not having to eat dog food in their old age (and I know you already know all that!). A sense that everyone should be afforded dignity.

And of course, the religious right would never be powerful here; people just wouldn't stand for it. I know some very devout Christians in the UK and they find people like Jerry Falwell to be very distasteful, and they're also bemused that anyone takes them seriously in the States. They're also more than a little pissed off that Falwell and Dobson and their ilk like to imply that God has placed the United States as No. 1 in His personal hit parade, because it's insulting.

I'll tell you what I would love to see in the UK: a Coulter/Hannity/Limbaugh speaking tour. They would be chewed up and spat out by British audiences, ridiculed beyond belief, and I would happily pay to see that! Of course it will never happen because Coulter & Co. are too chickenshit to do it, but I can dream, can't I?

Hmm, I got way OT here, so maybe I should say that I would happily queue to see Ann Coulter publicly humiliated by a UK audience.

Edited to change a couple of words.

[RageFist]

31. I already want to emigrate...

at 21 years old. People here are so uneducated about what goes on outside of this damn country. I'm also really tired of many people my age (there ARE also many who are genuinely pissed about Bushco. and American policies/way of life in general). The fact that Paris fucking Hilton is a social icon here sums it all up. Many in the RW here usually rely on conjecture and hearsay (media, fellow idiots, etc.) to formulate their opinions...and don't even think about forming an opinion different than theirs. I can guarantee many couldn't even begin to estimate how many troops have died in this damn war. People can be so fascist without even thinking about what they are saying. I can't begin to speculate on how many I've heard say someting regarding dropping a bomb (nukes, generally) and wiping out the Middle East...problem solved, right? Never mind that these are mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, etc. They deserve it since they're Muslim a.k.a. terrorists. Are people in the UK capable of this kind of thinking? My friends and I honestly wonder about how wise it is to plaster our cars with political stickers and such (we do anyway) for fear of retribution. This I'm right, you're wrong attitude (again not all are this way) is really starting to get to me. I saw a sticker once that said "If you're not pissed off, You're not paying attention"...sadly, not enough are pissed over here.

[tenshi816]

36. My family back in Georgia

had no idea of how many American casualties there have been in Iraq until I told them and they were stunned, but it still hasn't dented their enthusiasm for * (except for my dad, who is a peaceful type as well as being retired with a serious heart condition - he's waking up gradually).

My experience is that the Americans I know back home by and large don't care about Iraqi casualties. It's an abstract. Brown-skinned, non-Christian, non-Americans don't register with them.

I've just come back from two weeks in Florida and barely heard the war mentioned on television while I was there (and that was on CNN) - it was instead pretty much all Natalee, all the time. Honestly, you'd never know there was a war going on other than the small number of "support the troops" bumper stickers I saw. Because the war isn't covered in depth in the MSM (to the graphic extent Vietnam was), people take no notice of it unless it affects them directly. Americans - by which I mostly mean Republican types - have short attention spans.

One thing that struck me as well was that in two weeks - in Florida, no less - I didn't see one single "W" or pro-Repub bumper sticker. Not one. I have to say that made me feel good because I was expecting to see a lot down in Jeb's little playground. I'm sure there were some, but I was actively looking and never saw any myself.

You're correct in your thinking - people in Britain don't go around suggesting that the ME be nuked. They'd be horrified at the idea. Yeah, there are bound to be a very few loonies who'd like it to happen, but again, people like that are the exception rather than the rule in the UK.

Also, thank God we don't have constant coverage of the doings of Paris Hilton and other fluffy, useless, talentless rich girls like her. There's no shortage of posh heiresses (and royals) here, but at least they're usually able to do something besides spend money.

I wish you'd take Madonna back though. She's doing my head in over here, trying to out-British the British (She rides! She hunts! She shoots! She dresses like the Lady of the Manor! She talks with a fake accent!).

[Anarcho-Socialist]

32. Ann Coulter speaking tour of the UK

That would be quite the smackdown for her. I'd also love to see her or someone like Hannity or Limbaugh get interviewed by a BBC journalist (i.e. Jeremy Paxman). That alone would make the licence fee worth it. :)

[tjwmason]

39. It has been said that anytime an Englishman needs to wait

He forms an orderly queue of 1.

It's a national hobby. My favourite is the queue at the bar or at the barber's shop - there's no actual line, but everybody has a cyber-queue in their minds, and even the thought of going ahead of the person before you would give most people a heart-attack.

[muriel_volestrangler]

40. An orderly queue at a bar?

No, I think that's the one place that queuing breaks down in Britain. There's a whole art of how to be conspicuous at a bar, and catch the staff's eye before the guy next to you, and how to manoeuvre into position as others get served (or get them to leave, rather than staying at the bar when they're served). If it's quiet, you may observe the niceties of who was there first, but once it's busy, it's every man and woman for themselves (and the sex of customers and staff itself can make a difference).

[moggie]

5. You're making me angry

You wouldn't like me when I'm angry: I may even make a slight "tutting" noise and mutter under my breath.

[beam me up scottie]

8. GASP !

Anything but that !
Muttering frightens me to death...

[non sociopath skin]

9. Excuse me, you fellows, is this the FRONT of the queue or the back ...

... and would you mind ever so much NOT peering over my shoulder while I'm reading my evening paper .... ?

http://www.rugbymail.co.uk/lifeandstyle/articles/6940834?source=Evening%20Standard

The Skin

[mogster]

19. Haha!

That was funny! :D

Sounds exactly like a Norwegian queue.

[moggie]

6. Queue gripes

What is it with people who don't know how to queue properly? I'm not referring to people who push in: we can all agree that they deserve to die horribly, but we can at least understand what motivates them. No, I'm talking about things like:

• Standing off to one side. WTF? It's meant to be a line, not a loose cloud of people. It's a simple enough concept!
  
• Standing several yards behind the person in front. Do these people have an exaggerated sense of personal space?
  
• Not being aware there's anyone behind you. Picture a queue like those at the ticket office of Waterloo station: perpendicular to the queue destination. You're second in the queue. The person in front completes their transaction, and then walks backwards from the counter, colliding with you. When this happens, they always seem surprised that you were there. Helloooo! It's pretty fundamental to queueing theory that you can expect there to be someone behind you!
  

And don't get me started about supermarket queues and Delayed Packing Syndrome.

[mogster]

20. Supermarket queue terms

"Checkout race blunder"
You discover a person out of the corner of your eye heading for the same queue as you, then try to shortcut by taking the chocolate-shelf route (and quicken the pace accordingly) instead of the (obvious) potato chips route. You lose because someone has blocked the choc shelf corridor with a pallet.

"Advanced queue shuffling"
The so-called queue-hopping, where you try to advance your queue level by changing queues. Because the queue you're in always seems to go slower. Unfortunately, you didn't see the lady shopping for her 17 children and grandparents, her brimming shopping cart hidden behind the icecream freezer. She slides smoothly into the queue right before you with the confident manner derived from years of training.
Well, unless you jump and dive in front of it, and we don't do things like that, do we?

Any hopeful hinting with you single pack of taco dinner will only produce a frosty stare - no pardon for obvious amateurs in the Hunt for Food. And of course your old queue has grown ten members since you left, leaving no retreat option available. You can tell that the man that had the position behind you saw, smiling at your misfortune.

:P

[beam me up scottie]

21. ROFL!

"Advanced queue shuffling"

That ALWAYS happens to me !!!

[mogster]

34. Hoho, you meet them too, uh?

They're everywhere ;-)

[moggie]

22. Other suggested terms

"Distributed shopping"
The practice of joining a queue before you have finished shopping, leaving one or more accomplices to gather the goods and top up your basket. Advanced practitioners will join the queue with an empty basket or trolley.

"Quantum queueing"
A quantum queuer will hover between two adjacent queues, appearing to be in both or neither, until it's clear which is moving faster, at which point the wave function collapses and they are found to be in that queue.

[tenshi816]

29. I've tried quantum queueing,

but the sad fact is that whatever queue I get into is destined to break down as soon as I get into it. Honestly, it's like some mystical ability I have to cause things to come to a complete and abrupt halt as soon as I enter a queue.

I attempt to combat this by using the "distributed shopping" method at the supermarket, when I send my children around to get the last half dozen items on the shopping list, but then when I finally get to the front of the queue, the cashier gets revenge by poking a hole in something so that another employee has to run around looking for whatever it is that was sabotaged, thus slowing things down for at least another 5 minutes or so.

The length of time all this takes expands exponentially during the Christmas season.

[mogster]

33. LOL! The Quantum queuer also

Appears in traffic ;-)
Whenever there are two lanes and a queue, he will swap lanes to save a few places, risking life and limb of himself and others in the process.

I have loong experience of dealing with drivers like this; stare unknowingly right ahead as you adopt your speed _exactly_ to match his, preventing him from accessing your lane (again).
Note: I never do this on the highway or where there is meeting traffic, of course.

But, oh I forgot :-o
Traffic 'queuing' deserves a whole category of it's own :D

[moggie]

38. Ah yes, BMW drivers

Going off on a tangent, this reminds me of being stuck, a few years ago, behind a large, expensive and slow-moving car in a narrow Hampstead street. As I muttered impatiently, I got close enough to read the sticker in the rear window, which said: "Actually, I DO own the whole road".

[Benbow]

10. The concept of queues - in the 1970s I worked for the man who

conceived of this. He was Bernard Schaffer, a political scientist at the Institute of Development Studies (Univ of Sussex). I guess that the why and the wherefore has all been codified by now.

[julianer]

16. I like bifurcating and trifurcating queues myself

not those mechanised things with funnels and numbers like the post office, but the unregulated, self-generating, self-ordered queues like those in petrol stations - they are certain proof of the viability of socialism IMCO.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

11. Oh F***, there's a queue!

I'm going be to stood here all night now.

[moggie]

12. Damn

:7:):-(:-(:spank::-(:boring::-(:crazy::grr:

Why do I always get to stand by the crazy guy?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

13. Well...

:P

[D-Notice]

14. Look at the size of this queue!

Sod it... I'll come back later when things have calmed down

[LeftishBrit]

15. After you!!!

[T_i_B]

17. Speaking of queues

I went in a branch of Subway for the first (and probably last) time yesterday. I'm kinda coming to the viewpoint that I'd rather go in a normal sandwich shop then a glorified conveyor belt for my lunch.

[moggie]

18. History

The first usage the OED lists for "queue" in this sense is from the 31 Jan 1893 Westminster Gazette:

You queue in, hand your card to somebody, pass on

[kiki]

35. Excuse me...

...do you mind if I go in front of you? I've got that flesh-eating supervirus, and I've only got 10 minutes to live.

[Guy_Montag]

37. no problem at all,

we'll get you treatment within 5 months.