Two Pints and Some Service Please

Pubs in one town in north-west England could introduce organised queuing. It's a drastic solution to what can seem to be a mysterious art - getting served at a busy bar. Britain may be a nation of queuers, but the thought of lining up in an orderly fashion at a bar is enough to turn many a drinker's beer flat. But that's what patrons of busy town centre pubs in Oldham may find themselves doing if plans for post office-style queues go ahead to deter trouble. For the rest of us, getting served at a heaving bar remains a challenge born out of frustration.

From the BBC News Website

Getting served in some pubs in Edinburgh is indeed a mysterious art. It's particularly frustrating when it's your round and you have an order the size of the Treaty of Versailles. Fighting your way past people to the bar can be traumatic enough - the numpties who have already been served but see fit to stay at the bar in any case, those who think they simply must answer their mobile phone while ten million people queue behind them and those who simply don't think. 'Hey, Shug, dae ye want ice in yer Jack Daniels?' shouts Tam to his mate half a mile away at the other side of the pub.

But what I find particularly irritating is, on eventually reaching the bar, I suddenly become the invisible man despite me wafting a twenty pound note in the air which, by the time I do get served, has a value of around £15 (that's inflation for you) Some Edinburgh pubs can be quite awful in this regard although there are pubs in Dalkeith which are streets ahead when it comes to ignoring those punters who aren't regulars but have the temerity to come in and ask for a drink.

Drinking in Scotland's pubs has at least improved in the last few years what with the ban on smoking (although as well as fighting your way to the bar you now have to fight your way to get into the pub through the smoking fraternity lighting up right outside the entrance to the licenced premises) But getting served, particularly at the weekends, remains a frustration.

I'm trying to envisage an Argos type queuing system working in darkest Dalkeith. 'Order Number 25 - four pints of lager, two vodka and cokes, a white wine and a Bacardi breezer to your collection point please.'