"... phewy up my nose...": Q

France is a 'civilised' place. The public transport works, most the time. The TGV is amazing, albeit expensive. The cheese is great. The wines are super. The healthcare system is apparently the envy of most states. The roads aren't too schabby. The ski stations are well equipped. The national airline is up there (although the Boeing 777-200s on the Houston leg could do with replacement). The Seine is relatively clean. It is home to the brains behind commercialised nuclear power, and was home to some of the greatest artists. Think of it, they managed to turn a piece of scaffolding into one of the world's biggest tourist attractions.

Why then, is it so difficult to organise a queue??? There are stacks of them, all the galleries, airports, metro stations, intersections... and no, such a civilised, developed place, with so many queues, hasn't yet worked out how to organise one. Next time you are in a foreign airport look around. The flight to Heathrow is boarding, and the passengers are in a queue. Oh look, New York, and a queue. The Russians are queing for St. Petersburg. Spot the flight to Charles de Gaul... yip that one with two hundred hooligans trying to elbow the competition to the gate.

You've tried to cross an intersection in Paris during rush hour? You can't. This is made impossible by the guy perpendicular to you in the middle. No, he knew he wouldn't make it all the way across. That's the point! If he wasn't going to make it, there is no way in hell he was going to let you make it. So you hoot and call each other names. He probably goes on to do surgery, or design a power station that day... it's a difficult one, that complicated concept; the queue.

Last Sunday we bought reserved tickets for 11 am at the Yves Saint Laurent exhibition at the Petit Palais. The show opens at 10am. When we arrived at eleven, imagine our disgust to find that we had at least a two hour wait ahead of us. Yes, that's right, it one hour of show they managed to organise a two hour delay. How did they ever design the TGV?

Speaking design, the YSL show is magic. There are hundreds of outfits on display, elegant, provocative, trend setting... really worth seeing. Worth two hours wait? No way, they don't deserve to earn money for such a bordel. Relax, step out of the queue, and do yourself a favour, take in the Negative exhibition nextdoor, interesting look at Italian photography in the 1850's, and if you stroll the corridors you may well just find yourself at the entrance of YSL, whilst outside, the insults are still being flung. It beats having to elbow you way to the front.

Sunday also saw 40 000 odd folk strung out in a sort of queue, all trying to beat their competition to the end. Congrats to those that took part in the Paris marathon, it was a lovely day for running.