Learn how to queue if you want to be British

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.express.co...ou-want-to-be-British

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas says:

/// "The simple act of taking one’s turn is one of the things that holds our country together. It is central to the British sense of fair play and it is better for everyone".///

Where do these people come from?

Following the British etiquette of joining queues will help them integrate more successfully and smoothly, I doubt it.

No learning to take one's turn when it comes to hand-outs may help better.

[New Judge]

Try a busy bus stop, Quinlad, say outside Kings Cross or Charing Cross stations.

The notion of a "queue" is completely alien to bus users in central London.

[theonlyone]

I'm English and white and proud of it ,not British which is a mish mash of cultures
and I object to paying for an Asian woman with 5 children to live on housing
benefit in a mansion in central London , and the taxpayer pays £7000 a month
for it . I'm not racist but I'm anti- rip off the benefit system . Where I live the single
mums all wear designer kit , smoke and always have a big breakfast in the local cafe
and have a white child then a brown one as that's the in thing to do .

[Kromovaracun]

"The only remark to you "old chap" is if you want me to respond to your question, please give me something to respond to. "

Aren't you always going on about how great it was in the old days when people were nice to one another?

Not only have you viciously snapped -completely- disproportionately to a comment by a fellow man of advanced years, but you've also clearly stated that you enjoy upsetting people.

Hypocrite much?

[daftgrandad]

That is very fair comment,to a certain point.
I would like you to itemise the remarks,which have offended you.You must live your life
on a very short fuse,if you consider,that my previous remarks have been insulting
to your blinkered vision,on life in the "modern" world.

[fredpuli47]

Ah, but the ones who don't queue properly here are all foreigners !LOL Where in London, if anywhere, are you living NJ ? I've had a home there for over 40 years, and worked in London daily for most of them, and I assure you people still form an orderly queue.. Where the system or practice is in danger it's where you find lots of tourists.

[Seadragon]

Oldgit, you just make me laugh, you're so funny!

I rarely come across a 'disorderly queue'. People of all sorts form queues whether they speak english or not, a vast majority of people do understand the concept of queuing and adopt it. It is respectful english etiquette.

[fredpuli47]

Time to point out that the anthropologist, Kate Fox, studied the English and noticed, inter alia, that we had meticulous, unwritten, rules for queueing (including at a bar in a pub , where there is no visible queue but a code nonetheless ). Then she noticed that she herself would form an orderly queue of one. If there was nobody else at a bus stop she would carefully position herself at the head of a non-existent queue ! That's British !
(Her resulting book 'Watching the English' is well worth reading )

[LoftyLottie]

AOG. My partner has been in this country for over 50 years and his family was invited over because of his father's reputation in his field. I have never made a secret on here that my partner is Eastern European. He is a British National. It does not cloud my views at all. Fortunately my own family has always been open minded and my father and mother were respectful to immigrants and both worked in environments where immigrants formed a great part of the community.

You don't know me at all! And I am fortunate that I don't know you.

[jno]

I'm with Quinlad: people queue in London all the time, even at King's Cross. There can be some confusion over queues when you have several buses arriving at the same stop on different routes; but people do their best to stay in order. Ditto supermarkets, escalators, and shop counters.

The prospect of new judges booting each other out of the way at ATMs in the high court is an appealing one, though!

[sp1814]

frespuli47

I'm totally gutted that you managed to reference Kate Fox's (very excellent) 'Watching The English' before me!

You made exactly the same point I was going to make.

Back to AOG - what's this comment you made about immigrants and handouts??? Are you saying that's how you view immigrants?

How come?

[fredpuli47]

sp1814, great minds....er....something or other ..er...plagiarize ? Oh, no, 'think alike' that's it.
Kate Fox's book first came out in 2004 but nothing seems to have changed (I gave it to a visitor to Britain recently and it was all uncannily,often amusingly, still true).

AOG remembers queues as they were many years ago . At the Labour Exchange and not an unemployed Asian among them. And as for Lottie's partner.Foreign family coming over 50 years ago,special skills..We had the same trouble in Cambridge. Ruddy Hungarians, coming over here taking our professorships !

[LoftyLottie]

Not a professorship Fred!

[jno]

'I'm white and proud of it...'
'I'm not racist but...'

Those two sentences go well together.

[fredpuli47]

Was Hungarian right, Lottie? It fits the timescale of 50 years plus.All right, not a professor. Something else valuable anyway (if professors are valuable ).We get a strange view of life in a city where anybody over fifty and wearing a suit is addressed as 'Doctor' and not 'Mister' !

'I'm not racist but..' is one of those expressions like '... my friend' uttered by strangers that means the opposite of what it literally means.Wonder whether 'old chap' falls in that category of offensive false friendliness ?.

[anotheoldgit]

daftgrandad

You asked me to itemise the remarks,which have offended you, well for starters your first post read:

/// AOG.You and I are probably around the same age?
I do not think you can compare queing for hand-outs as you so nicely put it,with
people who are prepared to WAIT! to be served
Curmudgeon,I think,is your middle name.///

Your whole post had a sarcastic edge to it, you shouted "wait" for some reason, and then you unnecessary added the " curmudgeon" remark, why?

/// You are getting more cynical as the afternoon progresses.///

/// You must live your life on a very short fuse ///

/// to your blinkered vision ///

I think most would find some of these offensive, especially when the brunt of my post were not my words.

Why you had to introduce"queuing for handouts" V "waiting to be served"? Although it is totally irreverent "queuing for whatever", is the same as "waiting to be served".

You may have been swayed by the postings of some others who regularly take my questions out of context to get over their point.

My question was regarding the silly remarks made by the Immigration Minister Phil Woolas, regarding teaching immigrants to queue the British way.

My remark about hand-outs, was a play on words, due to recent reports that the indigenous population are coming second in line to the immigrants.

I hope this clears things up, you can disagree with my points, but you do not have to reply aggressively.

[LoftyLottie]

Not Hungarian Fred. Actually it was 56 years ago. I'll say no more, but this was a family who suffered more than most of us can ever imagine.

[sp1814]

"My remark about hand-outs, was a play on words, due to recent reports that the indigenous population are coming second in line to the immigrants."

Eh?

Are you saying that immigrants are paid unemployment benefits, housing benefits and family credits BEFORE Brits?

Do you mean that in social security offices and at Post Office counters, Brits are made to go to the back of the queue?

I literally don't get that one.

[anotheoldgit]

sp1814

/// I literally don't get that one ///

That is because it wasn't meant to be taken literally.