Jun 20, 2007
Order, order
Apologies for the crapness of this camphone photo, but crossing the road to the bus stop this morning I was struck by how perfectly all the commuters in the line were preserving their personal space. Lovely.
I’ve written about queuing here before, notably:
- The Fine Art of Queuing – in which I attempt to buy a sieve in a backstreet Bolivian hardware store
- The Revolting Queue – in which the locals turn nasty when someone cuts in
- In the Queue – in which I’m accosted by an oddball
…and others, I’m sure.
H2G2 has a nice breakdown of queue typology here. And I liked this invention by a West Bank woman of special socks for queuing in:
Maram Abdel Latif, from Jenin, spent three years on the design and produced her first prototype in February.
The socks are made from nylon and gel that moulds around wearers’ feet to prevent discomfort, even if they stand for hours, as they sometimes have to.
Ms Latif, 22, says the socks are ideal for pregnant women and the elderly.
The carer at an elderly home says she got the idea after facing long waits at Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank.
Wish my camera phone was that good! Time for a new handset me thinks…
Love this photo. It reminds me of one of the big differences between people here in Africa. Those of us with European heritage tend to have a large personal space while those with an African heritage don’t. To picture the African equivalent of this queue, picture three or four more people between each of these. Then, imagine the bus arriving and the queue dissolving into disorder as people push forward to get on.
Technically that’s not a queue but a bar graph.
I think this is a SW London thing, this orderly queuing. I remember being surprised one time when we caught the bus from your place; everyone was so ordered.
Up in ‘ackney everyone just mills around then tries to leap in at the same time.
(Mind you, we also had one of those bendy buses, which might make a difference).