Time for Us to mind their Ps and Qs

I got back from New York yesterday. It’s the third time I’ve been to the States, and the second time to New York.

Sadly, I’ve never a) been asked if I know the Queen, b) told what a wonderful man Tony Blair is for sticking by the US or c) offered the chance to supersize my order.

But what I have learnt is this: While the UK in many ways is keen to ape the America – the checkout girl at my local Asda told me to have a nice day the other day – it seems the Yanks are keen to copy us.

Hell, they can’t have a royal family, so they’ll just keep re-electing members of the same family (Jeb Bush for 2012 anyone?). We used to be the world’s superpower. It took us centuries to build up that sort of influence – the Americans have done it in little more than two.

And now they’re chasing after one of our last quintessentially English traits: queuing.

No longer the preserve of the English, the Americans are making a sport of it. For example, how many queues do you think it takes to go up the London Eye? One.

How many queues to get up the Empire State Building? Five: One to get in the building, one to go through security, one to queue for a ticket, one to go up in the first lift and then another to go up in a second lift. Quite why there are two lifts, I don’t know – you’re hardly going to pay to go up to the 80th floor and then bail out of the next six, are you?

Then, at New York JFK airport – how many queues to get from entrance to plane? Three at a push at Manchester: One to check-in, one through security and then one to get on the plane. JFK? SEVEN. One to get in the building, one to check-in, another to drop off your bags, another for the first check-in, then for the second check-in, then in the incredibly small duty free shop, another to get through the departure gate and then, for good measure, one last one to pick up your duty free goods which they insist on delivering to the gate.

And after all that, do you know what: the woman welcoming us on the plane managed to say ‘have a nice day’ without even a trace of irony.