I’m standing in an airport queue after a medical conference, patiently waiting for the bag-tag machine, smugly grateful that I checked in on my phone, thus avoiding the line opposite me, five times as long.

Queueing to wait for one’s turn is a concept invented by hungry cavemen but not perfected until Homo erectus reached England: “Gentlemen, we’ve enough mammoth to go around, but you don’t get first dibs on the foretrunk by waving your club. Chisel your name onto this rock (in triplicate), and we’ll grunt for you shortly.”

Thus, the Brits were prepared for the world’s greatest ever line-up last month, known simply as ‘The Queue’, aptly, to pay respects to her majesty ‘the Queueen’.

London measures its politeness in human miles, and ten of those were on display along the Thames, snaking all the way past Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. The bard had even predicted it in Henry VI: “A serpent … that slily glided towards your majesty.”