A Better Course

Before 1939 the queue was usually a symptom of distress, like the sad shabby lines that waited endlessly outside the Labour Exchange, but during the war everything was in short supply so everybody had to queue, and some of them can’t seem to stop. Just as there are natural hypnotisees who cannot watch a mesmerist at work without being hypnotised themselves, so there are natural queue-joiners who cannot see two people standing on the kerb without falling in behind them.

“AOL tried to acquire an older user base in order to get a larger audience which they could increasingly monetise and Bebo kids didn’t want to be on Bebo with their parents,” said the former Bebo employee, adding that there was also a lack of investment in the product – “too many vice presidents and not enough developers”.