In Britain, the fastest way to make everyone angry is to walk to the front of a line.
1A queue is a line of people waiting for something: a bus, a coffee, a ticket. In Britain people form a queue almost automatically. Nobody gives an order and nobody draws a line on the ground, but within seconds everyone knows who arrived first and who arrived last.
2The rule is simple: you wait for your turn. If you walk to the front, people will not usually shout at you. They will do something worse. They will look at you, say nothing, and remember your face. Some of them will sigh loudly. This quiet disapproval is stronger than any sign.
3The habit is old. During the Second World War, food and petrol were limited, and families queued for hours to buy bread, sugar and meat. Order made a hard life possible, and the habit stayed after the war ended.
4Queuing is not only British, of course. People wait in line everywhere. But here the queue has become a small piece of national identity: something people laugh about and defend at the same time. Visitors often notice it at the bus stop on their first day, before they notice anything else.
Nobody organises the queue. Everybody knows exactly where it starts.
