The British have a reputation as a nation of queuers, but over the last few days it has been a lot. Thousands of people have lined up to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II as she lies in state in London. The British government has turned to social media to provide up to the minute updates on the queue.
The queue is currently at capacity, with the government advising new people not to join it, as of 9 AM UK time this morning. It took over half a day of shuffling to get to the same room as the Queen's coffin.
Multiple times a day, the UK's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has been sending out updates about The Queue, noting the length of the line and how long new joiners should expect to wait. What3words is a service that assigns three short words to identify specific gps locations, and has been used by the account to point people towards the end of The Queue.
There is a DCMS YouTube livestream which contains up-to-the minute information about the line of mourners, which can be found at the bottom of the page. A small group of people are watching.
The technology used to tame The Queue has had its ups and downs. The What3words locations have pointed to incorrect locations as far away as California due to minor typos in the location phrases. What should have been shops.views.paths was actually shops.views.paths, which is located in Charlotte, North Carolina.
What is it that it all means? The Queue could be the greatest bit of British performance art that has ever happened according to a user on the social networking site.
It is the most important part of the queue. It is artistic. It is a work of art. They say it's the queue to end all the lines. It is 2.2 miles long. If it reaches five miles, they will close it. You can't have a chair and a sleeping bag in that queue. The queue is constantly moving and there is no sleep in it.
The Queue is a textbook example of how people deal with grief according to Marie Le Conte. You throw your whole being into something a bit absurd because you don't know what to do with yourself after a big and terrible event.
It is difficult to properly engage with Queen Elizabeth II's death. It isn't an event you have to show up for, it's just in the air. In this moment, The Queue is one of the few tangible things that you can actually interact with and feel a part of.
There was a long line of mourners when King George VI died. Time said that no one could measure or plot precisely the columns of human beings that formed and reformed, doubled, branched and coiled back again along London's streets and across chilly Thames bridges.
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