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As a writer events happen and you feel an overwhelming urge to write about them. It can come from anywhere, a story in the news, something a friend tells me, or (most frequently) something one of my children has done.
Oddly I didn’t feel the pull to write about the Queen’s death. As iconic an event as it is I just didn’t feel the need.
I find with high-profile death that a lot of people start making it about themselves. It’s an odd reaction that occurs and has increased more and more with the popularity of social media.
Whilst I respect the Queen and admire her years of work, I would be lying if I said I was distraught at the death of a 96-year-old whom I do not know and who is not related to me. She had quite a wonderful and remarkable life.
There is one thing that I have felt compelled to write about though, and that’s The Queue.
I mean, what a queue, the sheer size of that thing was remarkable. There were water stations and porter loos, at one point there was even a queue to join the queue. It was so quintessentially British!
I find the concept of the queue difficult to understand though. Why anyone would voluntarily join it is beyond me. 12 hours to stand in a line to be paraded past a coffin of a woman they’ve likely never met is a little macabre.
I can’t help but think that there must have been a fair amount of people that joined the queue just to join…How many were there that had simply been sucked into it by a force they couldn’t repel? It’s a primal urge for us Brits to join a queue after all.
The Queue is very powerful and it’s created a fantastic talking point, but this queue, like so many good things, took a rather dark turn.
It initiated the rise of the social media mob. They tend to rear their ugly heads at every opportunity to spout their self-proclaimed righteousness. Just give them a chance and they’ll be there the pontificating bastards!
It all started when the This Morning golden couple Philip & Holly were pictured apparently ‘jumping the queue.’ I’m sure there were several celebs that didn’t queue but it came out just after David Beckham was branded a hero for standing in line with the peasants for 12 hours to pay his respects.
So after Beckham, they were cannon fodder.
It must have been a PR nightmare for ITV and while at first, the comments were mildly amusing (especially when you realise just how many people can’t spell queue or disgusted) it soon escalated.
The level of hate quickly rose to a frenzy and people were getting very angry and offended. They took to Instagram to leave hateful messages and there’s even an online petition calling for them to be sacked.
People are reacting like they’ve run over their grandma or something.
People were most ‘discusted’ at the ‘que’ jumping heathens because they have no regard for the pensioners and children who stood in line for hours.
It’s all gotten a little bit ridiculous.
Perhaps they’re just angry at everything and need an outlet, perhaps they’re sick and tired of people pushing in. Or perhaps they are slightly unstable…
We’ll probably never know for sure, but one thing I do know for sure is that: 1, People love to jump on the bandwagon of grief.
2, Social media holds a pocket of insane idealists that have assigned themselves as judge, jury, and executioners.
And finally 3, one must always respect the power of a queue and never, no matter how tempted or well connected you might be, attempt to jump the queue.
