I kø til kisten

"The British are not the only nation on earth that knows how to queue, but we’re the only ones to make it part of our personal brand. How like us to romanticise a phenomenon that is fundamentally a response to scarcity and privation. This queue, The Queue, looks like a feat of civic organisation that only the British would think to pull off. There are portaloos and police barriers and stewards staged with a precision that speaks of years of planning."

"Pam flew here from Wisconsin this morning. She is almost 60 and over six feet tall, with a blonde crop and a strong jaw and no indoor voice. “A few hours of me is too much for most people,” she warns, with a laugh that doesn’t reach her eyes. She needn’t have worried. Everyone indulges her because she is foreign and her excitement is flattering – although her mother loved the Queen more. “She told me ‘think about it, Pam – think about what she had to accomplish. As a female.’”

"Maybe it’s a coincidence, but almost everyone I speak to turns out to have recently lost someone, or something important."

14 hours in The Queue to see Queen Elizabeth's coffin er forrygende. London Bridge is down.

14 hours in The Queue to see Queen Elizabeth's coffin

Stood among strangers in search of history, I had a strange epiphany

'London Bridge is down': the secret plan for the days after the Queen’s death

The long read: She is venerated around the world. She has outlasted 12 US presidents. She stands for stability and order. But her kingdom is in turmoil, and her subjects are in denial that her reign will ever end. That’s why the palace has a plan.