DO you like queuing? How often have you gone to the bank of a lunchtime only to discover that the world and his wife have had the same idea? The minutes of your precious lunch hour slip by so quickly that no sooner have you said hello to the cashier than it's time to say hello to the afternoon shift.

What a waste of time!

The word queue, like so many others in our language, comes from Ancient Rome, via France: the Latin word cauda means a tail. When you come to think of it, I suppose it makes sense. Canine is another Latin word, meaning dog. But, who is wagging who?

They say the British are a nation of queuers. During World War II it was a running joke that if there was a queue, it didn't matter what for, it was a good idea to join it.

It was George Mikes who remarked that an Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an orderly queue of one.

More recently than the Second World War, a fact of life in the old Iron Curtain countries was the queue.

Perhaps it was a sign of increasing prosperity in those countries that queues eventually became reduced to only once round the block (or was it bloc?) More often than not though, when you got to the front, what you'd queued for had been sold out.

There are queues for NHS treatment, queues at supermarket checkouts, queues at traffic lights (don't they know I'm there?).

Now there's another form of queuing that makes my hackles rise.

This time I'm on the telephone. How many times has a recorded message informed you that 'you are in a queuing system, you are important to us'? There then follows what can only be described as 'tinned' music or Musak for anything up to ten minutes or even longer. Even worse, you are asked to 'select the option that most meets your needs and press that number on your telephone keypad'. All the while your telephone bill is rising at the same speed as your temper.

So often after standing patiently in a queue am I greeted with a smile and the words 'Sorry about that, short-staffed, you know'. In the words of Rhett Butler I am tempted to reply 'I don't give a damn'.

If companies, restaurants and shops want you to use their services and buy their goods it should not be beyond the wit of mankind (or womankind) to create an efficient, speedy and friendly working environment.

To be kept waiting is intolerable.

A recent international survey has suggested that we, in this country, pay over the odds to the extent of up to 60 per cent when compared to consumers in Europe and the United States. What's happening to all these companies' profits? They can't be used to employ extra staff.

If, like me, you get annoyed by queuing, do something about it. Make your feelings felt to the movers and shakers in those organisations, be it banks, clinics or whatever.

In any case, what a stupid way to spell a word.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.