Sparklefizz I shared with my siblings. No response.
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Thought this might amuse some of you!
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The Queue - wonderful
(139 Posts)Chalkie Davies
podnreosSt7y05h6tcm8Y5r1a a3c8hm61 aft1g:d1e5aei0a02f9ms0h2h ·
By @curiousiguana
Right, everyone. I need to be serious for a moment. Because the greatest thing that ever happened is happening right now.
I don't particularly care either way about the Queen. But the queue? The Queue is a triumph of Britishness. It's incredible.
Just to be clear: I don't mean the purpose of the queue. I don't mean the outpouring of emotion or collective gried or the event at the end and around the queue or the people in the queue. I mean, literally, the queue. The queue itself. It's like something from Douglas Adams.
It is the motherlode of queues. It is art. It is poetry. It is the queue to end all queues. It opened earlier today and is already 2.2 miles long. They will close it if it gets to FIVE MILES. That's a queue that would take TWO HOURS TO WALK at a brisk pace.
It is a queue that goes right through the entirety of London. It has toilets and water points and websites just for The Queue.
You cannot leave The Queue. You cannot get into The Queue further down. You cannot hold places in The Queue. There are wristbands for The Queue.
Once you join The Queue you can expect to be there for days. But you cannot have a chair and a sleeping bag. There is no sleeping in The Queue, for The Queue moves constantly and steadily, day and night. You will be shuffling along at 0.1 miles per hour for days.
The BBC has live coverage of The Queue on BBC One, and a Red Button service showing the front bit of The Queue.
NO ONE IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD JOIN THE QUEUE AND YET STILL THEY COME. "Oh, it'll only be until 6am on Thursday, we can take soup".
And the end of the queue is a box. You will walk past the box, slowly, but for no more than a minute. Then you will exit into the London drizzle and make your way home.
Tell me this isn't the greatest bit of British performance art that has ever happened? I'm giddy with joy. It's fantastic. We are a deeply, deeply mad people with an absolutely unshakeable need to join a queue. It's utterly glorious.
“The queue has visitors going to look at queue. My mum travelled to see the queue.”
“But surely it can't all be true?
How on earth can people stay upright & moving for 30 hrs or even 15 hrs? Surely tons and tons of people will faint, be ill, have hypos, get too tired to continue etc?
Are there any food stalls?
I'm worried about them all!”
“We don't even know if she is really in the box.”
“I'm upset you talked about the Queue without sharing links to how we can watch the Queue”
“What we need to understand is that probably 400,000 will queue & file past the Queen’s coffin but, in 20 years time, 50 million people will claim they did.
“It happened at Woodstock, at the first Pistol’s gig & Jesus probably fed 500 people.
It’s the need to become part of history”
“There you have a movie as British as it could be. You just need ten characters and how they got to the queue.”
“Of course the peak Britishness will come if the queue gets too long and the have to close it, because we will no doubt start a queue to join the queue”
“It's only a matter of time until I can be seen from space.”
“The International Space Station will be live streaming the queue from space.”
“Long live the Queue! This is what us Brits have been practicing for all these years.”
“An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.”
“Queue-Anon: a 12-step program for those currently lining up to see the Queen who need help leaving the queue.”
“In the US we frequently call this "getting in line." I've never wanted to be in line so badly as I do right now after reading the thread above.”
I've got to go to bed, Twitter. You have been WONDERFUL. So many funny, clever, nice, kind, lovely people. I'm sorry I can't talk to you all, it's just impossible and shows no sign of slowing down.
God Save The Queue.
David Beckham has unexpectedly risen in my estimation when I read that he refused an offer by an MP to be fast-tracked in the queue, and queued for 13 hours to get in.
BlueBelle
Well I misjudged that I sent it to my closest friend who normally totally shares my sense of humour and she told me she found it offensive and not at all funny She’s not an ardent royalist or anything and we normally laugh at the same things ???
Me too! I sent it to my cousin who sent back a snotty reply and hadn't grasped it at all.
BlueBelle
That is so funny British People are so weird Aren’t they who on earth else in the world would queue for days to see a box hilarious
You know, even as a Republican I can see that it's more than just "a box".
I think the OP is hilarious - but chapeau to the British tradition, and likewise to those who you accidentally bump into in a supermarket throng who then apologise to you! There is something good-natured about such people.
Try chatting to someone in a queue in Norway and well disposed though these people are, they will look at you as if you might be an axe-murderer on The Appalachian Trail.
I find it quite bizarre!
I can see it now, Sarah, the film of the "I met the love of my life" and then some poignant, "after that I was ill". the "we will be friends for life after this" going right or wrong"....lot of twitter cuts, but also (getting serous a moment) it would be wonderful if this actually memorialised perhaps when it the most genuine part of it all as unexpected, unplanned, spontaneous
Yes, I agree, Wyllow3. Much of this is OTT for me, but, as you say, The Queue is lightening the mood. It definitely has the makings of a film!
Thank goodness for a place where we can both see The Queue with humour and respect those queuing too. All the pomp and circumstance is OTT for me. I'm genuinely sad a good woman has gone, but not at all sure about the institution. The Queue seems the best of it somehow.
My son said he is going to view the queue this morning and pay his respects. He said there is no way he can stand for 22 hours.
Well I misjudged that I sent it to my closest friend who normally totally shares my sense of humour and she told me she found it offensive and not at all funny She’s not an ardent royalist or anything and we normally laugh at the same things ???
My mum was British, Yorkshire born and bred and she would never, ever queue. She would queue jump , push in as if it was her right. As a child growing up I was so embarrassed I could have curled up and died but she just didn’t care. People sometimes complained, rightly , but she still did it. She wasn’t a selfish person in other ways and my Dad, ex RAF, was certainly a queuer. She would have been at the front , straight in the door.
I once read a SF story about a man who was in a queue. He was there for many days, interacting with his neighbours in the queue. When he got to the front he gave in his name at a window, and that was all. When he walked away he feltsad, depressed and bereft. He felt that the entire purpose of his life had gone. So he joined the back of the queue ......
From a thread about “ The Queue”.
twitter.com/mralistairgreen/status/1570356343306964993?s=21&t=gCiWssOHT0qsqB3TgI4GNQ
twitter.com/paul__h/status/1570358319004647424?s=21&t=VmT39uKJ9c7j4XX9dLFdE
twitter.com/philbelyavin85/status/1570414124084985861?s=21&t=p5ipmtT-aewtcqEUdyOvVw
twitter.com/paul__h/status/1570659920919547911?s=21&t=oZuXbGkM_I38Z_ZP9bcorA
I have never seen or heard so many headcases in all my 68 years ...the woman who took her kids AND her mothers ashes to "see" the queen...a one off I hope ,or the liverpudlian in Edinburgh who travelled through the night so she could go past a box 7 times ..I wonder if she thought the old dear would rise from the dead and didn't want to miss it .
I only had the TV on for half an hour ,now I'm wondering what other gems I've missed .
Good for him, dragonfly, he has gone up in my estimation.
It's good to know that he was willing to wait his turn while some are being 'fast tracked'.
I hope that the people in the queue are well prepared for the drop in temperature which is forecast for tonight. Brave souls!❄
David Beckham queued all night.
Oh yes, you could set up a little auction and donate the proceeds to a worthy cause.
What happens to the wristbands? Do they take them back when you come out? Will we see them on Ebay next week? You could sell them to people queueing to join the queue that has closed.
JaneJudge
now David Beckham has been in the queue
Oh yes!
RTT
MissAdventure
I really would enjoy a programme about the queuers.
I am so interested in other people's lives.
Was that David Beckham in the queue?
henetha and Alan Measles !!!!!
I should imagine a queue is sensible from a health and safety point, too.
It’s truly amazing and all going like clockwork. I understand now it’s a 24 hour wait. Those that arrive when the whole family are standing guard around the Queen will be very fortunate.
The most British thing you can do - join an orderly queue.
I really would enjoy a programme about the queuers.
I am so interested in other people's lives.
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