Past London Bridge
Huge queues are forming along the banks of the River Thames, as people wait to pay their respects to the Queen.
…
The UK government has published a live queue tracker for people to follow on YouTube. Currently the queue is more than two miles long and the back of the queue is now past London Bridge.
TWO. MILES. LONG.
People queuing are being warned they will need to stand for many hours – possibly overnight – with little opportunity to sit down, as the queue will be constantly moving.
The maximum length of the queue is 10 miles – with 6.9 miles from Westminster to Southwark, and a three-mile zigzag queue in Southwark Park.
So why would anyone want to do that? The end goal is a box. It’s not tea with the queen, it’s not a glimpse of the queen from a distance, it’s not being in a crowd cheering the queen up on the balcony, it’s a box. Why would anyone join a two mile long queue just to walk past a box?
Especially since it’s not all that hard to get glimpses of royals anyway, if that’s your thing.
I could imagine a very long queue to walk past John Lewis’s box, for example. I’m too much of a democrat to venerate royalty or nobility, but there’s no accounting for taste in whom people choose to admire.
Hm. Interesting. I can imagine at least considering it, for the sake of helping other to make a point of how much John Lewis mattered. But I’d rather do it by being part of a crowd than by waiting in line for MANY HOURS.
So: Waiting in a long line to see a casket doing something… anything else? No brainer.
Most of them are probably avid tabloid readers. Sounds like a super spreader event to me. :P
Missing an ‘or’ there, damned arrows. Anyway, I don’t much like funerary functions, particularly for people I don’t know, and I’ve skipped out of a few of the ones I did know too.
I think they could have been a lot more efficient about this if they’d distributed her bits among multiple boxes spread out over London. Shorter queues in each location. Of course, there’d be people playing “gotta see ’em all!”, but most people would probably be satisfied with their favorite bit; a nose, perhaps, or a shapely ankle.
I remember back in June 2008 when Barack Obama came to downtown St. Paul to give a speech at the local sports arena and the line to get in was almost two miles long. So I can see people wanting to do it for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral. Sometimes it’s being there that matters I guess.
Here’s a link to a story recounting that Obama speech, it’s a fun read.
https://blogs.mprnews.org/newscut/2016/07/eight-years-later-a-long-line-remains-a-defining-obama-moment/
I hope for their sake the casket is open.
twiliter:
See, now, that might be worth the wait. (Yes, I know, tpyos strikes again.)
People like to see things, hear things, be there in person. There’s, of course, the part where you get to say, “I was there,” but more importantly immediate impingement on the senses is phenomenologically “real” in a way that’s different from experiencing the thing mediately.
I guess the tabloid readers need to get outside too… :P
Well you know waiting in line is the English pastime.
bugfolder – lol.
J.A. yes but as I said, this is a box. Obama speaking is one thing, the queen in the flesh is one thing, and A BOX is another. It’s definitely not open casket; it’s a box.
I get that people like to see things in person, I like it myself, but this is A BOX. It doesn’t seem like that much to see.
But the English pastime explanation is more convincing. And droll.
Mourn Porn.
Reminds me of other funerals, eg Stalin, Kim, Mao, Churchill; probably Lenin, but not yet born.
People lined the railroad tracks to watch the train carrying FDR back to DC from Georgia, which is even more removed than a box.
Sort of comparable but also sort of not. The train is poignant in a way a box in a big room isn’t. Last journey sort of thing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/CasualUK/comments/xaof56/brits_queuing_without_barriers_at_an_ed_sheeran/
We Brits do like queuing because it seems fair. Which is to say that if someone tries to push in, it’s the entire queue that delivers retribution. It’s so egalitarian. A prince must queue with a pauper.
The irony of the fact that these people are queuing up to view a box containing what’s left of a woman born to enormous privilege is not lost on me. We like irony too.
So you’ve got three of the favourite British pastimes here: queuing, irony and complaining. What’s not to like?