the above photo is a pic taken the other day while i waited in line at a London-area post office.  i needed to weigh a letter so it could be posted to America, therefore i had no choice but to stand in line.  when i got to a point where i could SEE the counter, i counted how many people were in line in front of me.  there were 34.  i was the 35th person in line at the post office.

but the thing i'd like to note here is NOT the length of the post office line -- it's the fact that i timed my experience, and it only took me 18 minutes to go from being 35th in line to being served at the counter.

this would NEVER have been the case in an American post office.  first of all, in an American post office a line of 35 people would have signaled a national crisis of some sort and it surely would have been temporarily shut-down.  second, i never would have WAITED in a line that long in America because generally speaking, a line that is 35 people long means something is really SUPER fucked up behind the counter.

so what's all this?  am i paying something BRITISH a COMPLIMENT?!

yes.  yes i am.

i am now officially a player of the game -- and (temporarily) not a hater.