I was recently at a pub when I witnessed that most heinous of things: a queue to get to the bar. Not a convivial scrum, offering the chance to strike up a charming conversation with a fellow drinker – the “who’s next?” interjection from the bartender often eliciting a magnanimous, “Oh, I think he was here first” that truly displays the best of contemporary British manners. The natural order of things was replaced, instead, by a joyless line snaking the length of the room.
It was all wrong. For, although we are a nation who famously can’t get enough of standing single file while we wait, pubs and bars are the one place this fetish traditionally gets left at the door. Joining the fray, jostling and muscling your way in until you’re triumphantly shoulder to shoulder on the front line – and using your practised eyebrow wiggle to catch the bartender’s eye – is all part of the experience.
