2 Weekend
what’s inside
Saturday, June 19 – Sunday, June 20, 2004
Contents
SHOWING SUPPORT
It’s my life ........................3
P6
Weekend walk .................4 Gardening ........................5 DIY .......................................5 The vet .................................5 In the news.........................6 MAKE A MERINGUE PIE P11 OUT OF THE NEST
Talking heads ......................6 The week in pictures...........6
P5
Past/present .......................7
THE PAVILION GARDEN’S 200-YEAR-OLD TREE
Close-up on Brighton ...........7
P7
Around the world ..........8 & 9 Late breaks .........................9 Reading matters...............10 Cooking in style ................11
NAOMI’S NEW LOOK
P15
LUXURY LINER P8&9
Drink talking.....................11 Cover story ..........12, 13 & 14 TV preview ......................15 Pick of the week ................15 The week’s TV .............16-23 Vanora on the box ............24 David Roper ....................24
the rant THE British have some delightful traditions. Such as tea drinking, Sunday roasts, fish and chips, village greens, tennis tournaments, and bank holidays. A tradition that is less endearing – and irritates me beyond belief – is citizens forming an orderly queue at any given opportunity, whether it is necessary or not. Why is it people will queue for the busiest till in the supermarket, instead of pushing their trolleys 20 metres to find a vacant checkout? And line up for a set of disgusting Portaloos at an outdoor event, when the identical toilets five metres behind are available and clean? I saw this happen at a festival, where you would like to think that folk would be more independent minded. Upon pointing out the queue-free conveniences to the long line of punters – who were standing with their legs crossed, clutching their lavatory
I refuse to stand in line. I’m sick of queues and all the suckers who wait in them paper in a most undignified fashion – they stared back blankly, as if I were trying to tear the very fabric of society apart. The list of British queue scenarios is just about endless. Airport check-in queues (arrive two hours early so you can stand with your baggage ’til you drop). Train station queues snaking round the concourse (take your place at the back and you’ll never, ever manage to board a train).
Club queues (line up for two hours until you’re freezing cold and want to go home). Changing room queues (half an hour waiting to try on that cheap dress!) and food queues (do you really want that limp burger?). It leads me to ask the question: Why do we do it to ourselves? I prefer the Continental attitude of “every man for himself”. It’s refreshing to scramble for a bus, elbows and brolly at the ready.
barking I can’t imagine the French or Italians standing mindlessly in line for a Portaloo or a dodgy burger. At least the London Underground, with its constantly busy platforms, encourages a more honest, hands-on, scrum sort of approach. It is as if we Brits have an ingrained lemming instinct: Something which has been drummed into us by our parents and teachers at an early age, along with the stiff upper lip. See a couple of people in a line and you must join it without question. It is rude not to stand in a nice, neat row. Now then: Would we line up single file to jump off the Palace Pier, kamikaze style, just because our peers were doing it? Presumably not. So why do we herd ourselves into an orderly queue, without a second’s thought, for everything else in life? Jo Chipchase (furled umbrella at the ready)
Is something bothering you? Then get it off your chest by emailing rant@theargus.co.uk Only contributors who include their full name and address will be considered for publication, although we shall only show an abbreviated form of the address. We reserve the right to shorten letters.
Martin Fish