Thread by @robertrea

So that was a night of my life I won’t get back. I never really intended to queue up for so long, but hey, you do the first hour and it’s all quite fun, and the second isn’t so bad, because you’re chatting to all the people around you and stuffing your face with sweets. And then

..by the time the third hour rolls around, you’ve already invested your time in the queue, and it’s moving and you think, well, it’s probably only an hour or two more, look, there’s the London Eye, we’re not that far away now. And then by the end of the fourth hour, something..

..just gets hold of you and makes you determined not to quit now, not now you’ve been queuing so long. And after that you’re in for the long haul, whatever it takes!

And guess what? It becomes an experience in itself! You hear tales of the horrors ahead of you, and you’re not sure whether they’re true (the mythical Snake, for example, and the legendary Snake2). You swap stories with your queue-neighbours. You read out hilarious tales from..

..social media and sing songs and give your water to the elderly bloke who looks like he’s about to keel over. You’re part of a thing. A happening. Tall tales are told. “I’ve been queuing since half past three in the morning, before I went to bed!” “From Blackfriars?””

..”Aye”. “You were lucky. We used to dream of joining the queue at Blackfriars..” And so on. It becomes a struggle against the odds, a saga that will be told and ridiculed for generations (“my crazy grandad once queued for a whole day to see the Queen in a coffin!”), you..

..overcome all of he obstacles, you earn your wristband, you cross Lambeth Bridge and emerge unbeaten from the jaws of the Snake, you and your footsore companions, and it’s only taken you eight hours..
Wait. WHAT? Yup. Eight hours. You’d never have done that if you’d known what…

..you were signing up for at the start. But you did. And - somehow - it was worth it

PS one of my favourite moments was on the Albert Embankment. Two girls had stopped to leave their bags at the bag-drop and were walking up and down the queue trying desperately to find their friends. One of the queue marshals tried to help them by suggesting they give..

..their friends a call. “We can’t” they said “We don’t know their numbers. We only met them in the queue”