London
It is a moment for which Britain has been in solemn preparation for years. Multiple official agencies were brought together. Meticulous plans were secretly drawn up. Intricate logistical technicalities were ironed out. A route was carefully mapped out.
And no country’s population could have been better prepared for it.
We are talking, of course, about the queue which Britons must join in order to pay their respects to Queen Elizabeth II. This is not an ordinary line. It has taken on symbolic meaning, a ritual to be undertaken, an embodiment of the national mood. It is, in short, The Queue.
It snakes from Westminster Hall, where the late monarch’s body is lying in state, for miles along the south bank of the River Thames. It stretches past landmarks such as the London Eye (constructed at the turn of the millennium), the Royal Festival Hall (opened in 1951, the year before Princess Elizabeth’s accession to the throne) and the Globe theater (a throwback to a previous Elizabethan age). Plans are in place for it to be as long as nine miles, or 14.5 kilometers.
