Queuing fortunately is part of the British way of life

Life, shopping and queuing now go together. Fortunately for us Brits, queuing is a great tradition which most people honour. We are prepared to queue for hours if we get what we want at the end of it. In the US of course there is no such word as queue. It's "line". Excuse me, are you in line? In the UK, it's excuse me are you in the queue? But it comes to the same thing. Now though, thanks to coronavirus, queuing is a very different experience. Now you have to be at least two metres behind the next person in the queue and at least two metres in front of the one behind. And that's where the trouble starts. If you're outside a major supermarket at, say 10.30am, the queue is massive, not because there are hundreds of shoppers but because of the two-metre separation line. There are more gaps than people, and the occasional wandering would-be shopper without really thinking it through, just dives in to the biggest gap and plants his or her feet firmly in position, having, he/she thought, saved a potential wait of 20 minutes. This gets people riled. Oh my God it does. Queue-jumpers are always unpopular but now it has become almost a criminal offence. If someone with a large shopping bag meanders up near the front or half way down the queue (line) and asks, "Excuse me, are you in the queue? " it is terribly tempting to reply, "What do you think, stupid?" You don't of course but the first thing you do is shuffle to the left smartly because the would-be interloper is standing three feet away as he asks his daft question. When he gets the picture that he is about to jump the queue, he turns away and walks ALONGSIDE the queue all the way to the back. You can see the queue of people trying to bury themselves into the supermarket window to try and maintain the two-metre distance. Once you are in the supermarket, the two-metre distancing goes to pot. Everyone tries to steer themselves and their trolleys away from others, but even though the numbers are kept to a reasonable total, at some point you head for the mango chutneys at the same time and two arms stretch out for the final two jars. Two metres are briefly forgotten. None of this is either funny or worthy of a joke. It's deadly serious but at the same time it's mostly terribly polite and caring and people smile but according to the relentless government radio messages being churned out every hour, anyone, man, woman, child or queue-jumper can be a virus carrier. So there is a chance even a quick trip to the supermarket can infect you by the time you get home. When covering wars in the field for The Times I would always be wary of likely spots for snipers or mines on the road or driving round corners that could lead to an ambush. Your every day is about assessing risks, taking them or not taking them, deciding whether the story has the potential for glorious headlines the next day or, literally, putting your life in danger. Here, in peacetime Britain - and it's the same in any city around the world, particularly in the US at the moment - assessing risk is impossible. None of those in the queue is wearing a label saying, "I have the virus" or "I am a carrier without symptoms". They all look just fine, even the determined or stupid queue-jumper.