Nobody does a queue better than the British! Queue for coffin is five miles long

[Fivemoreminutes1]

So the question is, would you join it? I’m just not very patient and don’t think I could do it!

news.sky.com/story/route-revealed-for-queue-to-see-the-queen-lying-in-state-and-where-you-can-take-a-break-12696584

DD saw someone in the news last night who had managed to go round five times in Edinburgh. Not just mad but selfish too, adding to the queue for everyone else.

Wowsers! It’s gonna be like an urban legend of the 30h queue and what happened there: “I was born in The Great Queue of 2022 during the Queen’s lying in state. When all over mum just swept me up and carried on queuing. True Brit she was”.

No wonder the economy is on its knees 🙄

They are advertising the queues to be long to put people off.
If there were times slots, half of you lot on here would moan that people were treating it the same as popping in to MacDonalds or into Hamleys or whatever.
This way at least the people most committed to seeing the coffin will be the ones who get in.
And so what if people post about it on social media? That's the modern way. In the old days people would have written letters saying they had been there. I doubt many people will queue for 8hrs just for social media, it is surely more likely to be an extra.
Watching on the TV the queues seem well managed, and the people are happy being there in the moment.

Maybe if they did time slots it would attract too many people and not everyone would 'get a go' (feels really icky writing about viewing someone's coffin like that but that's kind of how it seems to be going) before Monday morning. With the queue, only the really hard core Queen fans are going to go. But if there were time slots there might be hundreds of thousands more who would think 'oh, we might as well go as not' and then those who were really, really wanting to go wouldn't get tickets.

Yeah this is why, nothing else has happened in the last few years.

i get the timed slots would attract complaints argument - I think just as many would be unhappy about it, maybe even more

This way people who are committed can choose to turn up, it’s up to them, I’m sure the atmosphere is good for those who are there - like a coming together

I prefer the old school to digital way even though I have zero intention of queuing

And people would be trying to sell their timed slot on eBay etc i suppose.

At least no phones are allowed in there so that will cut down the pictures, because one picture of the coffin will be very much like another!

I can't really how shuffling past a coffin is 'paying respect' the Queen. I'm not bothered one way or the other by the Royal Family, I just don't understand it. The whole point is that she can't see these people paying respect because she's passed away. I know some people are saying it's historical, once in a lifetime etc, but is it then performative, to say you've done it?

This might give the economy a bit of a boost tbh? It might but , but thinking of those
people who run mobile food stalls may be able to cash in, cabbies taking people home later on , people maybe going on to other tourist sights once they have seen the coffin, restaurants and bars with extra trade when people need a sit down and some refreshments
I'm sure that someone will make a few extra bob out of this and many of the helpers are volunteers, so that's not an extra cost to the country just now.

I love a good walk, but at a brisk pace not a shuffle. 5 or 10 miles at that speed would infuriate me.

@the80sweregreat Economists are thinking that the extra bank hol might tip us into recession through lost productivity and the fact that nothings open for people to spend

If i ran a sandwich business in London I'd be getting down to that queue for sure. And I would think Just Eat/Deliveroo/Getir will be having great fun locating their customers.

I, and others, think we are already in a recession. One bank holiday isn’t going to make a drop of a difference especially since services sector is carrying the economy right now and during bank holidays, people spend on services.

The “two quarters in a row of declining GDP” is a rule of thumb type definition used to declare a recession, but it’s rather outdated as is the GDP calculation itself. So Jun was -0.6% and July was +0.2%, so “officially” not in a recession.

But honestly the economy is flat, wobbling slightly above and a little more below zero growth is a what I call a rocking chair recession.

5 miles! I haven't watched the news etc etc and no one I know is bothered in the slightest. A few Paddington memes that have dried up now, and everyone I know in real life and on social media seems disinterred (as am I). I find it crazy that people literally couldn't think of a better way to spend 30 hours!

When I was a teen I spent a night sitting on the street waiting to buy pearl jam tickets 😁 it was great fun. Maybe this queue is a similar sort of vibe? Minus the beer, pizza and music I suppose!

No. I need sleep and a regular wee.

Me too 😂

Yeah fair enough about the timed tickets. Hadn’t considered it might attract even more people and then the inevitable auctioning off.

Wow! 30 hr queue. How amazing.

Better queue standers than me. It sounds an historical event in itself.

Whatever the reasons for it, it must be amazing for the Royal Family to see all this going and have such visible proof that the Queen was loved and that monarchy is important to the masses. We may sneer or say we’d never do it, but history will show footage of this and rather than sneer, I think it future generations will just go “wow”.

If I were organising it, I'd try very hard to over estimate how long the time might be, rather than underestimate. Better to say 30 and it turn out to be 10, than to say 10 and it turn out to be 30.

I would think the worst time to join the queue would be between say 9am and noon, too late for the early starts but not late enough to have got the daytime crowd through.

What time do you think would be best/worst?

If I were organising it, I'd try very hard to over estimate how long the time might be, rather than underestimate. Better to say 30 and it turn out to be 10, than to say 10 and it turn out to be 30.

Agree

I'm giving it about 8 hours before people lose their minds and start twatting each other with Union Jack umbrellas.

Surely it can't be taking 30 hours if it's 5 miles long and constantly moving? (Even at a very slow shuffle.)

If I didn't have work and DC to worry about I would have gone and queued. It's a huge moment in history and I had a great respect for The Queen. I definitely couldn't have managed 30 hours though! I can understand it's not for everyone, but likewise I find the thought of queueing for hours for a theme park ride utterly bemusing..... we're all different!

Hopefully talk of the long queue is putting people off unless they really, really want to be there.

I'm intrigued to know if anyone in the queue is reading this thread while they wait.
If you are queuing, perhaps you can shed some light and give us your reasons for doing it and how it's going?

I think it might depend on how bunched up the queue is?
Just watching TV now the bridge looks quite full and squashed, but if they file past in single file, and then people stop to bow ot could get quite slow I guess?